OF  r/?;,V;' 


JUN  24  1910   *j 


BV  4310  .S64  1908 

Speer,  Robert  E.  1867-1947 

The  Master  of  the  heart 


The 


JUN  24  1.910 


Master  of  the  Heart 


By 
ROBERT  E.  SPEER 

Author  of  " Missionary  Principles  and  Practices,' 
'•'The  Man  Christ  Jesus  "  etc.,  etc. 


New  York         Chicago  Toro/^o 

Fleming   H.   Revell   Company 

London      and     Ed.-^nburgh 


y 


Copyright,  1908,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


^ccoND  Edition 


New  York-  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  80  Wabash  Avenue 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
♦-■^ndon:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Ediuburgh:      100    Princes    Street 


PREFACE 

The  chapters  of  this  Httle  book  are  not  essays, 
but  addresses.  They  are  not  theological  or  liter- 
ary, but  practical.  They  were  spoken  in  the  first 
place  to  the  young  men  and  women  of  the  North- 
field  Conferences  in  the  summertimes.  They 
present  simply  and  earnestly  some  personal 
aspects  of  Christian  truth.  They  were  reported 
at  the  time  and  are  printed  here  in  almost  their 
original  colloquial  form,  in  the  hope  that  in 
some  life  they  may  make  a  larger  place  for  our 
Lord  and  Master,  Jesus  Christ.  Their  only  merit 
is  their  effort  to  exalt  Him. 

R.  E.  S. 

New  York. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEH  PAGE 

I.  Our  Lord  and  Master,  Jesus  Christ    9 
11.  The  Believing  Heart    ....     33 

III.  Christ's  Appeal  to  the  Doubting 

Heart 56 

IV.  The  Heart's  Response  to  the  Mas- 

ter's Call     ....  »     ,     *]2 

V.  The  Inner  Circle      .....     93 

VI.  Looking  Away  to  Jesus       .     .     .110 

VII.  The  Unity  of  Hearts  in  Christ  .   132 

VIII.  The  Master,  the  Maker  of  Strong 

Hearts 151 

IX.  The  Master's  Work  for  His  Fol- 
lowers     ........  167 

X.  The  Burning  Heart      .     .     .     .185 

XL  The  Master,  the  Satisfaction  of 

the  Heart 206 

XII.  The  Uniqueness  of  Our  Lord  and 

Master  Jesus  Christ        .     .     .  223 


I 

OUR  LORD  AND  MASTER, 
JESUS  CHRIST 

ONE  of  the  most  beautiful  scenes  in  the 
Bible  is  the  picture  which  John  draws 
for  us  in  the  twentieth  chapter  of  his  Gos- 
pel, of  Mary  Magdalene  at  the  tomb  of  Jesus  on 
Easter  morning.  John  tells  us  that  before  it 
was  light  she  had  come  to  the  grave,  unable  to 
accustom  herself  to  the  loss  of  her  Master.  If 
she  could  no  longer  have  Him  personally  with 
her,  she  would,  at  least,  be  as  near  as  possible  to 
His  body.  She  found  the  stone  taken  away,  and 
hastened  back  to  the  city  to  tell  the  Apostles  that 
the  sepulchre  was  empty.  Peter  and  John  at 
once  ran  together  to  the  tomb,  John,  the  younger 
man,  outrunning  Peter.  Not  having  the  courage 
of  the  elder  man  to  go  into  the  sepulchre,  how- 
ever, he  waited  until  Peter  came  up  and  looked 
in,  and  then  together  they  noticed  that  Jesus'  linen 
clothes  were  there,  but  that  He  was  gone.  The 
empty  chrysalis  of  the  grave  clothes  convinced 
them  of  the  resurrection,  and  they  went  away. 
Mary  Magdalene  had  evidently  followed  them 
from  the  city,  but  remained  at  the  sepulchre  after 
their  departure.     John  tells  us  that  as  she  was 


10      THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

waiting  there,  she  summoned  up  courage  to  look 
in,  and  saw  two  angels  in  white,  "  one  at  the  head, 
and  the  other  at  the  feet,  where  the  body  of  Jesus 
had  lain,"  and  that  after  these  two  angels  had 
asked  her  why  she  wept,  and  she  had  answered, 
"  Because  they  have  taken  away  my  Lord  and  I 
know  not  where  they  have  laid  Him,"  she  heard  a 
sound  over  her  shoulder,  and  turned  her  face 
to  see  who  was  there.  She  turned  only  her  face, 
and,  John  says,  supposed  it  was  the  gardener 
whom  she  saw.  He  asked  her  the  same  question 
which  the  angels  had  asked,  adding,  "  Whom 
seekest  thou  ?  "  The  Lord's  thought  was  of  the 
object  of  her  search,  rather  than  of  the  cause  of 
her  tears.  Finding  that  she  failed  to  recognise 
Him,  and  had  turned  back  to  the  tomb  again, 
He  called  to  her  at  last  by  name — "  Mary  " ;  and 
John  says  she  wheeled  about  at  once,  her  whole 
body  this  time,  with  the  quivering  words,  "My 
Master! "  I  do  not  think  there  are  many  sweeter 
things  in  the  Gospels  than  that,  or  any  sweeter 
words  than  these  which  Mary  used  at  the  sepul- 
chre—"  My  Master."  The  Gospels  show  that 
nowhere  in  the  Gospels  did  Jesus  bid  men  to 
call  Him  "  King."  He  told  no  one  to  call  Him 
"  the  Son  of  God."  He  was  both.  But  He  did 
tell  them  clearly  that  they  did  right  in  calling 
Him  "  Master." 

We  use  the  word  often  nowadays.  There  is 
scarcely  any  word  that  is  so  frequently  on  the 
lips    of    earnest    students    in    our    schools    and 


OUR    LORD    AND    MASTER  11 

colleges  in  describing  Christ  as  the  word  "  Mas- 
ter," and  perhaps  there  is  scarcely  any  word  that 
is  used  so  often  with  inadequate  conception  of 
the  full  content  of  the  personality  of  Christ.  Men 
speak  of  *'  Christ  and  other  masters."  People 
who  do  not  think  of  acknowledging  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  their  divine  Lord  and  only  Saviour, 
speak  of  Him  as  their  "  Master."  It  is  not  a 
new  thing  that  the  word  should  be  used  even  in 
the  way  of  thoughtlessness  or  insincerity  or  cant. 
The  same  word  that  Mary  used  Judas  also  used 
when  he  came  to  Jesus  with  his  kiss — "  Hail 
Master." 

It  is  right  for  each  of  us  to  use  the  words, 
"  My  Master,"  but  is  it  right  for  us  to  use  them 
without  an  appreciation  of  what  they  mean? 
Glance  back  over  the  past  year,  and  let  us  see 
whether,  tested  by  what  we  have  done,  Jesus 
Christ  has  been  our  Master.  Have  we  been 
where  we  have  been  solely  because  we  have 
thought  it  would  please  our  Master  to  have  us 
there?  Have  we  regarded  Him  as  in  any  sense 
Master  over  the  choice  of  electives,  our  relations 
to  men,  the  reading  of  books,  all  tastes  and 
habits  of  life,  the  form  of  business,  the  choice 
of  friends,  the  use  of  money,  the  expenditure  of 
time  ?  Or,  tested  on  the  touchstone  of  our  plans 
for  the  future,  is  Jesus  Christ  our  Master?  Are 
we  planning  to  do  next  year  what  we  believe  it 
is  His  wish  for  us  to  do?  Have  we  shaped  our 
ideals  and  tastes,  our  thoughts  of  life,  with  sole 


12      THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

reference  to  the  pleasure  of  the  one  whom  we 
call  our  Master?  I  think  if  we  are  honest  with 
our  own  hearts,  no  matter  which  test  we  use, 
we  shall  see  that  in  a  very  poor  sense  has  Christ 
been  the  Master  of  any  one  of  us.  And  yet  He 
claims  to  be.  "  I,"  He  says,  "  Your  Lord  and 
Master." 

What  is  covered  by  this  claim  of  Christ's  to 
perfect  sovereignty  over  us,  and  by  our  recogni- 
tion of  His  right  to  the  first  place  in  our  lives  and 
wills  ?  It  will  help  us  to  answer  if  we  take  time 
to  think  of  some  of  those  terms  by  which  the  first 
Christians  avowed  their  recognition  of  Christ's 
right  to  this  pre-eminence,  especially  two  sets  of 
titles  by  which  they  referred  to  our  Lord  in  the 
first  years  of  the  Christian  Church.  First  of  all, 
the  title  of  Master,  and  those  other  names  that  are 
associated  with  that.  There  are  five  different 
words  in  the  New  Testament  which  are  translated 
master  in  our  English  Bibles.  The  first  of  them 
(SiSao-KttAos)  means  simply  teacher.  It  is  the 
word  that  was  used  by  the  two  disciples  of  John 
when  they  left  their  master,  and  turned  to  follow 
Jesus,  and  said  to  him,  "  Rabbi,"  which  is  by  in- 
terpretation "Master,  where  dwellest  thou?" 
It  was  the  word  that  Mary  used  on  the  resurrec- 
tion morning.  This  was  the  simplest  of  the  titles 
by  which  the  early  Christians  recognised  the  pre- 
eminence of  Jesus  Christ.  They  acknowledged 
that  He  was  their  Master  in  the  sense  that  they 
had  now  entered  His  school,  and  that  whatever 


OUR   LORD    AND    MASTER  IS 

education  they  were  receiving  was  an  education  in 
which  He  held  the  place  of  pre-eminent  teacher. 
Now,  our  Lord  teaches  men  still,  who  call  Him 
"  Master  "  in  many  ways.  There  is  a  powerful 
educational  influence  just  in  His  presence.  Many 
times  we  forget  the  power  of  education  which 
there  is  in  personal  companionship,  not  in  speech, 
or  in  pressed  influence  only,  but  in  the  uncon- 
scious influence  of  presence  upon  the  thought  and 
judgment.  There  are  thousands  of  men  who  can- 
not think  in  their  mother's  presence  of  that  of 
which  they  can  think  when  out  of  her  presence. 
There  is  a  wrath  against  sin  born  in  the  presence 
of  Christ  that  cannot  be  maintained  outside  His 
presence.  There  is  love  of  tenderness,  there  is  a 
fondness  for  the  likeness  of  His  Father's  counte- 
nance, in  the  presence  of  Christ  that  is  not  be- 
gotten where  Jesus  Christ's  presence  is  not  ex- 
ercising the  mastery  of  education  over  life.  We 
see  this  principle  in  the  life  of  our  Lord,  in  those 
expressions  in  the  prologue  of  the  Gospel  of  John, 
that  declare  to  us  that  the  face  of  the  Word  was 
ever  directed  towards  the  face  of  the  Father,  Trpos 
Tov  ©eov — not  that  He  was  with  God  only,  but  that 
He  never  looked  at  anything  in  itself,  but  only  in 
the  face  of  God;  that  He  saw  this  world  not 
in  itself,  but  reflected  in  the  face  of  God ;  that  He 
judged  life  and  all  its  values  not  as  they  ap- 
peared in  themselves,  but  as  He  saw  them  in  the 
face  of  God.  Our  Lord  thought  His  thoughts 
and  formed  His  judgments  in  the  educating  pres- 


14       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

ence  of  God.  And  if  He  is  my  Master,  He  be- 
gins in  my  life  this  process  of  education  by  per- 
sonal influence;  He  makes  me  loathe  or  love 
those  things  that  I  would  not  loathe  or  love  if  I 
did  not  make  Him  my  pre-eminent  teacher  in 
this  regard  and  feel  always  as  I  would  feel  with 
Him. 

The  Apostles  constantly  appeal  to  this  truth 
when  they  hold  before  the  eyes  of  the  early 
Christians  the  prospect  of  Christ's  second  com- 
ing, and  exhort  them  by  the  hope  of  His  coming 
to  greater  purity  and  strength  of  life.  Why? 
They  appealed  to  them  to  cherish  certain  judg- 
ments because,  if  Christ  were  there,  they  would 
cherish  those  judgments;  they  appealed  to  them 
to  lead  certain  lives,  because  in  Christ's  presence 
they  would  not  be  satisfied  with  any  other  kind 
of  life.  "  And  now,  little  children,  abide  in  Him, 
that  when  He  shall  appear,  we  may  have  confi- 
dence and  not  be  ashamed  before  Him  at  His 
coming.'* 

But  if  Christ  is  my  Master  in  any  real  and 
complete  sense  He  will  be  teaching  me  in  other 
ways  than  by  this  general  educational  influence 
of  His  presence.  Think  of  His  masterful  teach- 
ing in  the  matter  of  prayer,  in  the  matter  of 
service,  in  the  matter  of  humility!  Who  ever 
entered  His  school  who  was  not  taught  lessons 
in  service  and  humility  and  prayer  that  none 
but  the  Master  could  teach?  Or  think  how  He 
sets  Himself  to  be  the  lesson  that  we  are  to  learn. 


OUR   LORD    AND    MASTER  15 

I  like  the  way  in  which,  after  so  constantly  put- 
ting things  indirectly,  the  New  Testament  rises 
with    dauntless    directness    and    says    we    are 
not  to  feed  only  upon  the  influence  of  Jesus; 
we  are  to  feed  upon  Jesus.    We  are  not  alone  to 
live  by  the  words  of  God  that  come  out  of  His 
mouth,  we  are  to  eat  the  flesh  and  drink  the 
blood  of  Christ.     And  so  we  are  not  only  to 
sit  in  our  Master's  school  and  have  His  influence 
work  upon  our  judgments  in  its  mighty  trans- 
forming power,  not  alone  to  sit  in  His  school 
and  be  taught  lessons  of  prayer  and  humility 
and  service — we  are  to  set  Him  before  us  and 
learn  Him.     "  Ye  have  not  so  learned  Christ," 
said    Paul    in    one    of    his    choice    expressions. 
And   Simon   Peter   conveys   the   same   idea  by 
the    phrase    in    which    he    describes    Jesus    by 
the  same  term  that  was  used  to  describe  the  copy 
that  a  schoolmaster  wrote  at  the  head  of  the 
wax  tablet  for  his  pupils,  an  iTnypdfXfjirj  that  they 
should   reproduce,   "  Follow  in   His  steps."     If 
Jesus  Christ  is  our  Master — not  in  any  perfunc- 
tory sense,  not  in  the  sense  in  which  we  speak 
of  other  masters — if  He  is  our  Master  really  and 
sincerely  and  vitally,  then  you  and  I  are  pupils  in 
His  school,  and  all  our  judgments  take  form  from 
His  influence.     We  ourselves  are  little  children 
learning  the  lessons  that  He  sets  for  us.    Yes, 
we  are  the  little  children  who  learn  the  lesson 
that  He  Himself  is. 

The  second  word  for  "  Master  "  occurs  only 


16       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

once,  and  then  in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  towards 
the  close  of  the  Gospel,  where  Jesus  says  to  His 
disciples,  "  Have  not  many  masters,  for  One  is 
your  Master,  even  Christ,  and  all  ye  are  breth- 
ren." Ka$rjyr)Tr]<s  is  the  Greek  word,  and  it  means, 
literally,  "  leader,"  the  man  who  goes  before,  after 
whom  the  disciples  go.  It  was  a  more  pertinent 
word,  perhaps,  in  those  early  days  when  schools 
moved  about  and  walked  after  their  teachers, 
their  pedagogues,  but  it  is  a  pertinent  word  even 
still.  If  Jesus  Christ  is  my  Master  I  set  Him 
before  my  eyes  and  give  Him  pre-eminence  as  the 
leader  of  my  life,  and  all  that  I  am  and  do  must 
take  shape  for  the  path  in  which  He  leads  me. 
The  very  natures  that  He  has  given  us  demand 
such  a  Master  as  Jesus  Christ  in  just  this  regard. 
No  human  life  can  get  along  without  some  kind 
of  a  master  of  this  sort.  We  make  them  for 
ourselves  out  of  our  friends,  we  make  them  out 
of  dead  heroes,  or  we  find  him  in  Jesus  Christ, 
our  Master  Leader,  Himself.  He  sets  for  us  the 
example  of  our  life,  so  that  we  deem  those  things 
despicable  which  He  deemed  despicable,  those 
things  loathsome  which  He  despised,  and  only 
those  things  beautiful  and  holy  which  lay  close 
and  warm  upon  His  heart. 

Is  Christ  our  Master,  in  this  sense  of  setting 
us  as  leader  an  obligatory  example?  We  look 
at  His  example,  and  the  first  thing  that  impresses 
us  is  the  breadth  of  His  spirit.  Probably  the 
influence  of  most  of  us  is  not  felt  beyond  twentjr 


OUR   LORD    AND    MASTER  17 

or  thirty  souls.  Christ's  influence  was  unre- 
strained and  illimitable.  They  once  tried  to  con- 
fine Him  to  the  city  of  Capernaum,  where  He  had 
had  great  success ;  where  people  were  willing  to 
give  Him  everything  He  needed.  His  disciples 
suggested  that  they  should  localise  their  work 
there.  It  was  a  rational  course  which  they  pro- 
posed, but  the  breadth  of  His  spirit  would  never 
allow  Him  to  stay  within  the  borders  of  a  single 
village.  He  broke  such  bands  asunder  as  Sam- 
son had  broken  his  in  the  days  of  his  strength, 
to  let  His  love  and  effort  go  out  widely,  to  all 
the  cities  and  villages  of  His  country,  and  to 
those  other  sheep  who  were  not  of  that  Jewish 
fold.  He  spoke  not  of  any  one  community  or  na- 
tion, but  of  the  world  as  His  field.  He  told  His 
disciples  He  had  a  message  which  was  intended 
for  the  whole  earth.  If  Christ  is  our  guide,  in 
the  sense  that  we  are  to  follow  Him,  to  possess 
the  same  traits  of  character  that  marked  Him, 
then  no  one  of  us  dare  be  narrow  in  our  love  or 
our  service.  The  world  must  be  our  parish,  also. 
Looking  at  Him  still  as  our  leader,  our  example, 
we  note,  as  a  second  thing  that  marked  Him, 
His  self-sacrifice.  Paul  spoke  of  it  tenderly 
when  he  said,  "  Though  He  was  rich,  yet  for  our 
sakes  He  became  poor,  that  we,  through  His 
poverty,  might  be  rich."  He  spoke  of  it  yet  more 
tenderly  when  he  wrote  to  the  Philippians  that 
he  wished  very  much  that  they  might  have  in 
them  that  mind  that  was  in  Christ  Jesus,  who 


18       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

though  He  was  in  the  form  of  God,  thought  not 
equaHty  with  God  a  prize  to  be  jealously  re- 
tained, "but  made  Himself  of  no  reputation, 
and  took  upon  Him  the  form  of  a  servant,  and 
was  made  in  the  likeness  of  men;  and  being 
found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  He  humbled  Himself, 
and  became  obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death 
of  the  cross."  Yet  a  third  characteristic  was 
His  unwearied,  unhesitating  constancy,  the  un- 
wavering persistence  of  the  service  He  wrought. 
He  was  weary  or  hungry;  He  worked  on 
still.  The  Son  of  man  came  to  meet  the  needs 
of  men,  and  no  obstacle  was  great  enough  to 
hinder  Him  in  His  effort  to  meet  those  needs. 
Is  Jesus  Christ  our  Master  in  the  sense  that  our 
lives  are  following  His  guidance,  and  seeking  to 
resemble  Him  in  these  respects? 

The  third  word  for  "  Master  "  occurs  only  in 
the  Gospel  of  Luke,  and  there  about  half  a  dozen 
times.  It  is  the  word  which  Simon  Peter  used 
after  the  night  of  their  fruitless  fishing  on  the 
Galilean  sea  when  Jesus  bade  them  to  cast  the 
net  on  the  other  side  and  they  would  find  fish. 
"  Master,  we  have  toiled  all  night  and  taken 
nothing;  notwithstanding,  at  thy  word,  I  will  let 
down  the  net  for  a  draught."  It  is  the  word  the 
disciples  used  when  Jesus  was  asleep  in  the  boat 
among  the  troubled  waves  of  the  sea.  ''  Master," 
they  said,  "  carest  thou  not  that  we  perish  ?  "  It 
is  the  word  which  the  sons  of  Zebedee  used  when 
they  came  to  Him  and  said,  "  Master,  we  saw  one 


OUR   LORD    AND    MASTER  19 

casting  out  devils  in  thy  name.  We  forbade 
him,  because  he  followed  not  with  us."  ETrto-Tarr;? 
is  the  Greek  word.  "  Overseer,"  it  means,  the 
one  who  has  complete  control  over  our  methods 
of  service,  the  one  who  has  a  right  to  direct  us 
in  our  toil,  to  tell  us  the  things  to  be  done  and 
not  to  be  done,  the  one  to  whom  we  look  for 
counsel  and  direction  and  advice,  and  under 
whose  rule  we  reverently  lay  all  our  schemes  and 
plans  for  His  direction  and  control.  Is  Jesus 
Christ  our  master  in  any  such  sense?  Have  we 
given  Him  the  pre-eminence  honestly  in  this  re- 
gard, so  that  He  has  become  the  true  overseer 
of  our  lives,  so  that  He  directs  us  in  our  work? 
Think  of  the  immense  amount  of  fruitless,  flip- 
pant, frivolous,  shallow  and  squalid  work  done 
in  this  world  that  would  be  undone  at  once  by 
men  who  took  their  directions  from  Him.  Think 
of  all  the  tenderness  of  heart  that  would  come 
into  the  toil  of  men  who  were  working  under 
His  direction  and  following  His  methods  in  their 
toil.  I  met  an  old  man  some  years  ago  who  told 
me  of  a  visit  he  had  paid  to  the  city  of  Dundee 
in  Scotland  not  many  years  after  the  death  of 
Robert  Murray  McCheyne,  for  whom  the  whole 
of  Scotland  wept,  although  he  died  at  the  age  of 
only  twenty-nine.  He  said  that  when  he  got 
off  in  Dundee,  he  asked  a  man  on  the  street  if 
he  could  tell  him  where  McCheyne's  home  was. 
"  Oh,  yes,"  said  the  man  with  a  smile,  pointing 
him  down  the  street  to  where  McCheyne's  church 


20       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

and  manse  were  standing.  Then  he  knocked  at 
the  door  where  McCheyne  had  lived,  and  his  old 
sexton  let  him  in  and  took  him  into  the  study 
where  McCheyne's  books  were  still  upon  the 
table,  and  he  said,  "  Sit  down  here,"  taking  him 
up  to  the  chair  in  which  McCheyne  worked,  and 
my  friend  sat  down.  "  Now,"  he  said,  "  put 
your  elbows  down  on  the  table,"  and  he  put 
his  elbows  down.  "  Now,"  he  said,  "  put  your 
face  down  in  your  hands,"  and  he  put  his  face  in 
his  hands.  "  Now,"  he  said,  "  let  the  tears  fall. 
That  was  the  way  my  pastor  used  to  do."  And 
he  took  him  into  the  church  and  into  the  pulpit 
where  McCheyne  had  preached,  and  he  said, 
"  Put  your  elbows  down  on  the  pulpit,"  and  he 
put  his  elbows  down  on  the  pulpit.  "  Now,"  he 
said,  "  put  your  face  in  your  hands,"  and  he  put 
his  face  in  his  hands.  "  Now,"  he  said,  "  let  the 
tears  fall.  That  was  the  way  my  pastor  used  to 
do."  And  that  was  the  way  our  Master  used  to 
do.  As  He  drew  near  the  city,  we  read  that  He 
wept  over  it,  and  He  cried,  "  O  Jerusalem,  Jeru- 
salem, if  thou  hadst  but  known  in  this  thy  day 
the  things  that  belong  unto  thy  peace;  but  now 
they  are  hidden  from  thine  eyes."  I  think  one 
reason  why  so  much  of  our  service  is  dead  and 
fruitless  is  because  it  has  no  vision  of  the  over- 
seeing Christ  whose  eyelids  knew  the  touch  of 
tears,  and  who  would  direct  those  who  would 
follow  Him  as  their  loving  and  pre-eminent  Mas- 
ter, in  ways  of  service  that  would  find  access  to 


OUR   LORD    AND    MASTER  21 

the  hearts  of  men  as  His  way  found  access  to 
their  hearts  and  holds  them  in  absolute  sover- 
eignty still. 

It  is  this  mastery  of  Jesus  Christ  that  will  do 
in  the  realm  of  our  work  what  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  Christ  will  do  in  the  realm  of  our  thinking 
and  our  judgment.  There  is  a  power  in  the 
presence  of  Christ  to  quicken  the  sluggish  life. 
Who  has  not  seen  the  torpid  life  touched  by- 
Christ?  I  have  a  friend  who  is  a  workman  in  a 
steel  mill.  Some  years  ago  he  was  not  able  even 
to  read.  When  he  was  converted,  he  could  not 
read  a  chapter  in  the  Bible,  but  after  his  con- 
version he  made  up  his  mind  he  must  learn  to 
read  in  order  to  be  able  to  study  the  Bible.  He 
has  had  no  education  except  what  he  has  found 
in  the  mastery  of  Christ  and  in  the  study  of  His 
word.  And  it  is  a  treat  to  hear  that  man  pray — 
the  rich,  fluent  dignity,  the  deep,  reverent  spirit 
— and  to  sit  down  and  talk  with  him  is  like  talk- 
ing with  a  man  who  had  been  at  school  at  the 
Master's  feet,  who  had  had  all  his  sluggish  in- 
stincts touched  by  Christ  and  raised  into  new 
life,  whose  torpid  life  had  been  quickened  and 
awakened  by  the  living  One.  The  dullest  of  us 
can  be  touched  by  the  power  of  Christ's  mastery 
when  once  His  pre-eminence  as  overseer  of  life 
is  honestly  and  candidly  recognised  and  the 
whole  life  yielded  up  to  His  rule. 

The  fourth  word  that  is  translated  "  Master  " 
is  the  word  Kv/atos."    Most  of  the  time  it  is  trans- 


22       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

lated  ''  Lord."  It  is  the  word  which  Jesus  uses 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  when  He  says  that 
"  no  man  can  serve  two  masters ;  either  he  will 
hate  the  one  and  love  the  other,  or  cleave  to  the 
one  and  despise  the  other."  It  is  the  constant 
word  in  the  New  Testament  of  address  to  Jesus, 
for  reference  to  Jesus'  power  over  life,  and  often, 
instead  of  being  translated  Lord,  it  is  translated 
by  our  old  word,  Master.  I  think  there  is  scarcely 
any  title  of  Christ's  that  is  quite  so  familiar  to  us 
as  this,  that  we  use  so  often  in  our  prayers  and 
perhaps  in  our  speech  about  Christ  to  one  an- 
other, nor  any  that  we  take  upon  our  lips  more 
often  in  vain — Lord.  What  does  it  mean  that 
Jesus  Christ  should  be  my  Lord?  I  heard  Dr. 
A.  J.  Gordon  of  Boston  say  once,  not  long  before 
he  died,  that  there  was  nothing  that  gave  him 
such  a  thrill  of  pleasure  as  to  hear  a  young  man 
call  Jesus  Christ  Lord,  if  he  had  any  knowledge 
at  all  of  the  meaning  of  what  he  was  saying — 
Jesus  Christ,  Lord,  the  Owner  of  life,  the  utter 
King  of  life,  everything  yielded  up  to  His  domi- 
nating control.  If  Jesus  Christ  is  my  Master  in 
the  sense  of  being  my  Lord,  then  all  the  plans 
of  my  life  must  be  laid  down  for  His  supervision 
and  judgment  and  authority.  I  go  where  He 
sends  me;  I  do  what  He  tells  me;  I  stay  where 
He  bids  me.  We  worry  ourselves  so  many  times 
about  our  difficulty  in  finding  the  will  of  God. 
The  will  of  God  is  seeking  every  one  of  us  with 
more  eagerness  to  discover  us  than  we  feel  to  find 


OUR   LORD    AND    MASTER  23 

that  will.  We  cannot  get  away  from  the  will  of 
God  if  we  have  the  least  desire  that  the  will  of 
God  should  discover  us  and  set  us  in  the  Father's 
place.  And  the  man  who  has  once  called  Jesus 
Christ  Lord  honestly — and  no  man  can  say  that 
honestly  except  by  the  Spirit  of  God — has  at 
once  guaranteed  to  himself  that  his  Lord  will 
put  him  in  the  place  where  He  wants  him  to  be. 
It  is  of  infinitely  more  consequence  to  our  Lord 
that  we  should  be  where  He  wants  us  than  it  is 
to  us  that  we  should  be  there,  and  we  may  be 
sure  that  He  will  see  that  that  which  He  owns  is 
where  it  can  be  of  greatest  service  to  Him,  and 
that  He  will  guard  alike  all  its  hours  and  its  place 
and  vocation  in  life,  if  once  it  has  yielded  itself 
to  Him  as  King  and  Lord.  If  Jesus  Christ  is  / 
our  Lord  He  is  Lord  of  all  our  thoughts.  I 
know  my  own  heart  well  enough,  and  yours,  too, 
to  know  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  Lord  of  our 
thoughts.  Read  over  again  before  you  lie  down 
to  sleep  to-night  what  Jesus  Christ  had  to  say 
about  thinking — of  the  guilt  of  evil  thinking — in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount;  what  He  had  to  say 
with  reference  to  certain  standards  of  judgment 
that  had  prevailed  with  reference  to  sin,  and  His 
own  views  of  sin  as  a  thing  not  alone  of  the  outer 
act,  but  of  the  inner  imagination  and  desire,  and 
then  answer  the  challenge,  "  Can  I  say  I  am  a 
man  of  an  untarnished  heart  and  unsoiled  mind?" 
Who  of  us  has  brought  every  one  of  his  thoughts 
into  captivity  and  obedience  to  Christ?     Who  of 


24       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

us  has  honestly  yielded  up  his  thinking  to  Jesus 
Christ,  his  Lord? 

The  last  summer  of  Major  Whittle's  life   I 
went  in  to  see  him  one  evening  at  Northfield,  not 
expecting  ever  to  see  him  again.     He  was  so 
weak  that  they  were  watching  with  him  day  and 
night.     Only  a  few  days  before,  when  trying  to 
lift  one  of  his  arms  from  the  coverlet,  the  weight 
of  the  arm  proved  too  much,  and  it  had  fallen 
and  broken  on  the  bed.     He  lay  there  almost 
unable  to  move,  with  the  red  sunlight  coming  in 
and  falling  across  the  pale,  wan  face.    The  doc- 
tor and  the  nurse  were  there  at  the  time,  and  he 
asked  them  to  step  out  of  the  room  for  a  few 
moments.    He  told  me  the  days  were  very  long, 
that  he  could  not  sleep  more  than  a  few  hours 
and  that  he  waked  up  every  night  just  a  little 
after  midnight,  and  then  had  to  He  alone  until 
the  sun  came  and  the  friends  began  to  come  in. 
I  asked  him  what  he  did  during  all  those  hours. 
Well,  he  said,  he  gave  all  the  time  to  thinking 
upon  Christ.     He  thought  upon  Christ  in  the  Old 
Testament    types    and   prophecies;    he    thought 
about  His  lovely  life,  the  sweet  things  He  had 
said  when  He  was  here,  all  His  ways  with  the 
little  children  and  with  the  poor  and  sorrowful, 
and   all   the   mighty   things   He   had   done;   he 
thought  of  Him  as  He  is  now  at  God's  right  hand, 
and  then  he  thought  of  Him  as,  in  some  sweet 
day,  when  the  eastern  sky  grows  all  ruddy  with 
the  hope  of  His  return,  He  will  come  back  again. 


OUR   LORD    AND    MASTER  25 

Then  he  asked  me  what  was  the  best  thought  I 
had  had  that  day,  apologising  by  adding  that 
that  was  the  only  thing  he  could  do  now  to 
freshen  up  his  own  thinking,  inasmuch  as  he 
could  not  read  and  had  only  to  recall  what  was 
already  stored  in  his  memory  and  to  live  upon 
what  friends  said  to  him.  I  told  him  I  had  been 
thinking  that  day  of  what  an  immense  blessing 
it  would  be  if  ever>^  time  a  man's  mind  was  re- 
leased from  the  pressure  of  any  objective  duty 
and  free  to  go  to  its  own  place,  if  every  time  it 
was  at  liberty  from  every  external  strain  and 
could  do  the  thing  that  was  natural  to  it,  it  would 
fall  back  inevitably  on  Christ. 

Yes,  he  said,  he  had  often  thought  of  that,  and 
he  quoted  a  quatrain: 

"As  a  wee  bairn  to  its  mither, 
As  a  little  bird  to  its  nest, 
I  fain  would  lie  down 

On  my  dear  Saviour's  breast." 

And  then  he  opened  up  his  heart  and  spoke  to 
me  of  Him.  And  I  had  a  fresh  revelation  that 
summer  evening,  as  the  light  of  the  setting  sun 
streamed  in  over  the  face  that  was  so  near  the 
vision  of  the  great  land  that,  after  all,  is  not 
so  very  far  away  from  any  one  of  us,  of  the 
beauty,  of  the  transforming  power,  the  sweetness, 
the  ineffable  glory  of  the  life  that  has  made 
Jesus  Christ  Lord  of  its  thought.  Have  you 
thought  one  single  moment  to-day  only  of  Jesus  ? 


26       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

Have  we  recalled  to-day,  spontaneously,  I  mean, 
and  not  when  it  was  forced  upon  us  by  someone 
speaking  to  us,  a  single  thing  that  Jesus  said? 
Has  our  imagination  brought  back  to-day  a  single 
incident  or  event  out  of  the  life  of  our  Lord? 
What  else  was  the  imagination  given  to  us  for 
except  to  play  upon  Christ,  except  to  make  Christ 
live  again,  except  to  bring  back  to  us  every 
recorded  event  in  His  earthly  life?  I  have 
spoken  of  our  thoughts.  I  will  not  speak  of  will, 
of  passion,  of  emotion,  of  taste,  of  use  of  time, 
of  standards  of  judgment.  Over  all  these  things, 
too,  Jesus  Christ  is  to  be  Lord,  if,  with  any  hon- 
esty of  heart,  I  call  Him  my  Master. 

The  last  word  that  is  used  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  translated  "  Master "  occurs  only 
three  times  there,  and  twice  with  reference  to 
those  who  deny  Him.  Once  it  is  found  in  one  of 
Paul's  Epistles  to  Timothy,  where  he  speaks  of 
vessels  meet  for  the  Master's  use.  Once  it  ap- 
pears in  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  where  he 
speaks  of  certain  men  who  deny  the  Master  that 
bought  them.  Once  it  appears  in  the  Epistle 
of  Jude,  where  he  speaks  of  those  who  deny 
their  only  Master  and  Lord.  Aco-ttott;?  is  the 
Greek  word.  "  Emperor  "  will  do  for  a  transla- 
tion for  us,  the  One  to  whom  we  yield  everything, 
the  absolute  Ruler  and  King  whom  we  joyfully 
recognise  as  possessing  us,  all  that  we  are  and 
have,  and  ever  may  be,  possessing  the  thoughts 
with  which  we  awake  in  the  morning,  and  the 


OUR   LORD    AND    MASTER  27 

thoughts  with  which  we  He  down  to  sleep  in  the 
evening,  possessing  our  affections,  all  our  human 
relationships  and  friendships,  possessing  all  our 
tastes,  possessing  every  activity  and  power  of  our 
lives — Jesus  Christ  enthroned  as  absolute  Em- 
peror of  life.  There  is  a  story  of  one  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars  which  relates  how  one  of  Na- 
poleon's men  was  wounded  on  the  battlefield  and 
the  bullet  lodged  in  the  cardiac  region.  It  was 
before  the  days  of  anesthetics,  and  they  took  the 
soldier  off  the  battlefield  and  began  to  operate  in 
the  hope  of  finding  the  bullet.  He  lay  with  his 
eyes  looking  up  into  the  surgeon's  face,  while 
he  cut  closer  and  closer  to  his  heart,  until  at  last 
the  heart  itself  was  nearly  laid  bare,  and  he  could 
almost  feel  the  wind  blow  in  upon  it,  while  the 
surgeon  still  probed  for  the  bullet ;  and  he  looked 
up  quietly  in  his  face,  and  said  haltingly,  "  Sur- 
geon, I  think  if  you  cut  much  further, — you  will 
touch  the  Emperor."  He  had  him  there  more 
truly  than  he  sat  upon  any  throne,  more  truly  than 
he  sat  in  any  judgment  hall ;  there  on  the  throne 
of  the  soldier's  life,  and  affection,  and  will,  was 
the  Emperor.  Is  Jesus  Christ  our  Master  in 
these  senses  ?  If  He  is  not,  is  He  our  Master  at 
all?  If  He  is  our  Master  at  all,  He  must  be 
Master  of  us.  Teacher  of  us,  Leader  of  us,  Over- 
seer of  us,  Lord  of  us.  Emperor  of  our  lives. 

I  must  add  a  few  words  in  closing  about  that 
other  set  of  titles  in  which  the  early  Christians 
recognised  the  pre-eminence  of  Christ  in  their 


28       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

lives, — the  name  Saviour,  and  those  other  names 
of  our  Lord  that  are  analogous  to  that  one.  We 
think  sometimes  that  that  is  a  term  for  men  and 
v^^omen  who  have  not  yet  come  into  the  Christian 
life.  Do  we  think  so  or  do  we  feel  more  in  need 
of  Jesus  Christ  as  our  Saviour  now  than  we  felt 
before  we  confessed  Him  as  Lord  and  Friend? 
Professor  Davis  pointed  out  in  his  memorial  ad- 
dress regarding  Professor  William  Henry  Green 
of  Princeton  that  his  Christian  life  began  as  a 
boy  of  sixteen,  in  a  deep  sense  of  sin  and  of 
Christ's  power  to  save,  and  that  sixty  years  of 
busy,  useful  toil  in  Christ's  Church,  instead  of 
removing  that  sense,  had  only  deepened  it  and 
made  it  more  keen  and  acute.  The  further  on 
we  go  in  the  Christian  life  the  more  sensible  we 
become  of  our  necessity  for  the  Saviour.  The 
unclean  thought,  the  selfish  ambition,  the  harsh 
judgment,  the  unkind  word,  the  low  ideal,  the 
thousand  and  one  things  that  are  sin  in  our  lives, 
Jesus  Christ  alone  can  save  us  from.  We  need 
Him  to  save  us  not  alone  from  the  coarse  vice 
which,  let  us  hope,  we  laid  away  from  us  with  all 
temptations  to  it  years  ago;  we  need  Him  now 
to  save  us  from  the  infinitely  more  subtle  tempta- 
tions that  come  with  every  day  of  growth  in  the 
Christian  life.  As  men  go  on  in  the  Christian 
life,  temptations  drop  from  them.  Yet  tempta- 
tions assail  them  more.  Temptations,  after  all, 
are  a  form  of  compliment.  There  is  evil  in  this 
world  to  be  slain,  and  God  apportions  it  to  men 


OUR   LORD    AND    MASTER  29 

as  He  sees  them  able  to  bear  it.  If  He  allows 
one  man  more  temptation  than  another,  He  gives 
him  no  more  than  he  is  able  to  bear,  and  only  as 
much  evil  as  He  sees  that  he  is  capable  of  slay- 
ing, and  as  year  by  year  we  go  on  and  feel  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  nerving  us  for  fresh  strife  and 
struggle,  Christ  answers  that  sense  of  growth 
by  giving  us  more  of  battle  with  the  evil  one  as 
our  share  of  the  conflict  with  the  sin  and  wicked- 
ness in  the  world.  And  the  purer  and  better  we 
grow  the  more  deeply  shall  we  feel  the  need  of 
Christ's  salvation.  I  suppose  Isaiah  was  one  of 
the  holiest  men  of  his  time,  but  it  was  he  who,  in 
the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died,  fell  down  in  the 
temple  while  the  house  was  filled  with  smoke, 
when  he  saw  the  Lord  on  high,  and  lifted  up  the 
cry,  "  Woe  is  me,  I  am  undone,  I  am  a  man  of 
unclean  lips  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a  people 
of  unclean  lips.  For  mine  eyes  have  seen  the 
King,  the  Lord  of  hosts."  I  suppose  Paul  was 
as  clean  a  man  as  there  was  in  his  time.  But  it 
was  he  who  pronounced  himself  the  chiefest  of 
sinners.  I  suppose  there  was  no  man  among  the 
Apostles  more  earnestly  sincere  in  his  desire  to 
follow  Christ  than  Simon  Peter,  and  it  was  he 
who  fell  down  on  the  shores  of  the  Tiberian  sea 
crying,  "  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man, 
O  Lord !  "  And  that  man  is  the  worst  hypocrite 
who,  as  he  grows  in  his  spiritual  life,  thinks  he 
has  been  growing  away  from  the  necessity  of 
Jesus  Christ's  saving  work  still  in  his  life.   Every 


so       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

fresh  vision  of  Christ  gives  a  fresh  vision  of  the 
man's  own  selfishness,  and  every  fresh  sense  of 
divine  power  is  a  fresh  sense  also  of  human 
shortcoming.  If  Jesus  Christ  is  to  be  pre-eminent 
with  us,  Jesus  Christ  must  each  day  be  our 
Saviour  in  a  sense  more  real,  more  complete, 
more  overwhelming  than  we  have  known  Him 
before. 

Jesus  Christ,  the  Saviour?  Yes,  but  more  than 
that,  too.  It  was  not  enough  for  Him  that  He 
should  die  for  us.  He  insists  afso  that  He  must 
live  in  us.  Jesus  Christ  will  be  pre-eminent 
in  our  life  not  alone  as  our  Saviour  from  sin, 
but  as  our  life  itself,  until  at  last,  if  we  will  let 
Him,  He  will  make  that  true  in  us  which  He 
made  true  in  the  Apostle  Paul,  so  that  we  shall 
be  able  to  say  what  now,  alas,  we  cannot  say, 
*' For  to  me  to  live  is  Christ."  Christ,  my  life! 
I  met  one  summer,  going  home  from  a  meeting 
in  the  mountains  of  Pennsylvania,  a  man,  now  in 
the  Christian  ministry.  He  told  me,  as  we  sat  in 
the  same  seat  in  the  car,  something  of  his  past 
life.  He  had  run  away  from  home  as  a  boy  of 
sixteen,  and  enlisted  as  a  private  soldier  in  the 
Union  Army  in  the  Civil  War.  He  had  yielded 
up  his  life  to  vice  until  sin  had  almost  slain  his 
character  and  eaten  his  will  away.  At  last  one 
dark  bright  day  he  touched  bottom,  and  Christ 
caught  him.  And  he  told  me  that  from  that  day 
there  had  stood  out  before  his  mind  without  fail- 
ure by  day  or  by  night,  the  message  that  flashed 


OUR    LORD    AND    MASTER  31 

across  his  soul  that  hour,  "  He  died  my  death  for 
me  that  I  might  hve  His  Hfe  for  Him."  Nine- 
teen hundred  years  ago  He  did  what  He  did  on 
my  account,  that  now  I  might  do  something, 
which  is  in  a  real  sense  the  same,  on  His  account. 
He  made  me  pre-eminent  then,  that  I  might  make 
Him  pre-eminent  now.  Shall  we  not  do  it?  Shall 
we  not  give  Christ  the  real  first  place  in  our  lives  ? 
— I  do  not  mean  professionally,  I  mean  vitally ; 
so  that  when  we  lie  down  to  sleep  to-night,  it 
shall  be  with  the  living  sense  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
our  Lord,  our  King  and  Ruler.  When  Cyrus 
took  captive  the  king  of  Armenia,  and  Tigranes, 
his  son,  with  their  wives  and  families,  and  carried 
them  off  to  his  capital,  for  several  days  they  lay 
under  sentence  of  death,  and  then,  at  last,  on 
pledge  of  relinquishing  all  their  claims  and  pos- 
sessions, he  set  them  free  and  let  them  return  to 
their  own  land.  It  is  said  that  on  the  way  back 
they  fell  to  discussing  among  themselves  the  glory 
of  the  court  of  the  great  conqueror,  and  one 
spoke  of  the  splendid  jewels,  and  another  spoke 
of  the  magnanimity  of  the  king,  and,  at  last,  Ti- 
granes turned  to  his  wife,  who  had  been  silent 
during  the  discussion,  and  said  to  her,  "  And 
what  didst  thou  think  of  Cyrus  ?  "  "  In  truth," 
replied  she,  "  I  never  saw  him."  "  Where  were 
thine  eyes  ?  "  said  he.  "  I  fixed  them,"  said  she, 
"  upon  him  " — referring  to  an  offer  that  Tigranes 
had  made — "  I  fixed  them,"  said  she,  "  upon  him 


32       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

whom  I  heard  in  my  presence  offer  to  lay  down 
his  Hfe  for  me."  She  had  eyes  for  none  other 
than  him.  I  wish  I  had  eyes  for  none  other  than 
Christ,  that  in  a  real  sense  He  might  have  with 
me  in  all  things  the  pre-eminence.  Let  us  give  it 
to  Him  now. 


II 

THE  BELIEVING  HEART 

I  WISH  to  speak  now  regarding  the  impor- 
tance of  our  keeping,  if  we  have  it,  and  of 
our  regaining,  if  we  have  lost  it,  what  might 
be  described  as  the  beHeving  heart;  and  what  I 
have  to  say  here  is  suggested  by  the  divergence 
between  the  King  James  Version  and  the  Revised 
translation  of  a  phrase  in  the  first  chapter  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians.  The  old  translation 
runs,  "  The  eyes  of  your  understanding  being 
enlightened,"  and  the  Revised  Version,  "  The 
eyes  of  your  heart." 

There  are  a  great  many  significant  changes 
made  in  the  Revised  Version  as  compared  with 
the  old,  but  few  of  them,  I  think,  are  more  signifi- 
cant than  this  one.  It  is  illustrative  of  the  great 
change  that  has  passed  over  the  thought  of  men 
as  to  our  nature  and  the  nature  of  the  great  life 
in  which  we  live.  We  are  only  com.ing  out  from 
the  slavery  of  notions  that  prevailed  for  many 
centuries.  We  are  even  yet  but  little  delivered, 
still  there  was  a  time  when  that  slavery  was 
much  denser  and  more  servile  than  to-day.  In 
his  "  History  of  English  Thought  in  the  Eigh- 
teenth Century,"  Leslie  Stephen  grounds  his 
33 


34       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

great  admiration  for  Edmund  Burke,  whom  he 
calls  the  strongest  mind  that  has  ever  worked 
on  the  problems  of  English  politics,  upon  the 
fact  that  he  was  the  first  English  statesman  to 
repudiate  in  practical  politics  the  notion  that 
had  prevailed  until  his  time  that  a  man  was  not 
very  much  more  than  just  a  mathematical  unit, 
that  his  inner  Hfe  could  be  reduced  practically 
to  an  impersonal  reasoning  machine,  and  that 
opinion  was  purely  intellectual.  It  has  been  in 
an  intellectual  intere^st,  a  gain  to  honesty,  that 
in  politics,  and  in  metaphysics,  and  in  religion, 
we  have  outgrown  that  old  conception  and  are 
unable  any  longer  to  think  of  a  man  as  made 
up  of  reasoning  capacity,  as  a  mathematical  rea- 
soning creature  alone,  or  to  think  of  our  intel- 
lect, if  we  separate  it  from  the  rest  of  our 
nature,  as  constituting  the  only  organ  by  which 
we  discover  truth  and  create  character.  It  has 
been,  of  course,  in  a  moral  as  distinctly  as  in  an 
intellectual  interest.  The  deistic  point  of  view, 
and  those  temperaments  which  the  deistic  view 
bred,  although  they  do  survive  in  a  way  in 
schools  of  physical  science  to-day,  have  been  made 
permanently  impossible  for  the  world.  We 
know  now  that  our  nature  is  vastly  richer  than 
men  thought  it  was  in  the  days  between  the  trans- 
lation of  the  King  James  Version  and  the  open- 
ing of  the  nineteenth  century.  We  all  of  us 
know  that  we  come  at  a  great  deal  of  truth  in 
other  ways  than  by  the  use  of  mathematical  rea- 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  35 

soning;  and  I  suggest  now  that  in  a  very  prac- 
tical way  we  try  to  think  for  a  bit  of  the  indis- 
pensable importance  in  life  of  another  faculty 
than  ratiocination,  which,  as  the  revised  trans- 
lators recognise,  really  exists;  a  faculty  which 
we  now  see  and  are  not  afraid  to  say  that  we  see 
St.  Paul  had  in  mind  as  an  organ  for  the  dis- 
covery of  truth  and  for  the  building  up  of  char- 
acter when  he  incorporated  in  his  prayer  for 
these  Ephesian  Christians  his  desire  that  the  eyes 
of  their  hearts  might  be  enlightened. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  the  believing  heart  is 
indispensable  for  the  discovery  of  truth.  I  do 
not  say  it  is  indispensable  to  the  discovery  of  all 
truth,  although  there  is  a  sense  in  which  it  is 
true  that  no  truth  can  be  discovered  without  it. 
I  do  say  that  the  truth  he  needs  cannot  be  discov- 
ered by  any  man  unless  one  of  the  organs  by 
which  he  sets  about  perceiving  it  is  the  heart  of 
trust  and  faith.  No  man  by  mathematical  rea- 
soning can  get  at  the  whole  truth.  We  know 
that  at  all  that  range  of  truth  that  is  personal  no 
man  arrives  by  his  mathematical  reasoning;  that 
he  gets  at  that,  if  he  ever  gets  at  it  at  all,  by 
quite  other  faculties  than  these.  That  is  what 
.  Tennyson  declares  in  his  protest  in  "  In  Memo- 


If  e'er  when  faith  had  fallen  asleep 
I  heard  a  voice,  *  Believe  no  more, 
And  heard  an  ever-breaking  shore 

That  tumbled  in  the  godless  deep. 


36       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

"A  warmth  within  the  breast  would  melt 
The  freezing  reason's  colder  part 
And  like  a  man  in  wrath,  the  heart 
Stood  up  and  answered,  *  I  have  felt' " 

He  does  not  mean  to  shut  out  any  one  set  of 
faculties ;  he  simply  means  to  assert  in  behalf  of 
another  set  its  rights  in  our  search  after  and  dis- 
covery of  truth. 

There  is  an  illustration  of  what  I  mean  in  the 
story  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  John, 
where  the  disciples  were  out  in  the  little  boat  on 
the  sea.  Precisely  the  same  intellectual  facts 
were  presented  to  the  minds  of  all  those  disci- 
ples. They  saw  a  man  on  the  shore.  There  was 
no  difference  in  their  eyesight  that  made  one 
man  keener  than  another  to  discern  His  features, 
and  yet  one  of  them  spoke  up  after  a  moment, 
the  others  still  failing  to  perceive  Who  that  Man 
on  the  shore  was,  and  said  softly,  "  It  is  the 
Lord  " ;  and  the  writer  of  that  Gospel  adds  sig- 
nificantly that  it  was  the  disciple  between  whom 
and  Jesus  there  was  a  peculiar  sympathy  who 
first  discovered  this.  He  discerned  with  a  dif- 
ferent set  of  faculties  from  those  which  the  other 
disciples  were  using,  or  because  those  faculties 
in  him  were  better  developed  than  they  were  in 
the  other  disciples.  Who  this  Man  was  Who  stood 
ttpon  the  shore.  And  I  suspect  we  would  have 
just  the  same  experience  to-day  if  Jesus  Christ 
were  actually  to  appear.  Some  of  us  would  rec- 
ognise Him  long  before  others  would,  and  some 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  37 

of  us  would  not  recognise  Him  at  all ;  we  would 
deny  utterly  that  it  was  Jesus  Christ,  simply  be- 
cause we  would  apply  to  His  identification  a  set 
of  faculties  futile  to  accomplish  that  end,  and 
we  would  not  have  in  our  hearts  that  enlighten- 
ment of  the  eyes  of  faith  that  would  enable  us 
to  discern  what  could  not  be  discerned  otherwise 
than  in  just  that  way. 

That  is  one  reason  why  so  many  of  us  live  so 
much  poorer  lives  than  others  live,  simply  be- 
cause we  are  content  to  get  at  truth  with  a 
smaller  number  of  faculties  than  other  men  use, 
or  because  the  eyes  of  our  hearts  are  blinded, 
short-sighted,  less  capable  of  vision,  less  accu- 
rately trained,  less  enlightened  than  the  eyes  of 
the  hearts  of  other  men.  We  look  at  a  picture. 
Precisely  the  same  physical  conditions  are  there 
to  every  man's  eye,  but  one  man  sees  in  it  infi- 
nitely more  than  another  man  sees  in  it,  because 
the  eyes  of  his  heart  have  been  opened  towards 
it.  A  great  many  men  reason  themselves  away 
from  the  larger  vision  of  truth.  That  is  what 
Mr.  Chesterton  complains  of  in  his  "  Twelve 
Types,"  that  all  of  us  are  perpetually  making 
the  error  of  using  the  word  "  superficial  "  in  a 
sense  that  is  grounded  on  a  fundamental  mistake, 
namely,  that  second  thoughts  are  best,  whereas 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  regarding  most  of  our 
lives,  the  first  instincts  are  the  only  trustworthy 
judgments  we  ever  have.  What  we  casually 
and    instinctively    feel    about    the    look   of    the 


38       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

skies,  about  the  aspect  of  the  trees,  about 
the  faces  of  our  friends,  that,  we  must  be- 
lieve, he  sayS;  and  not  what  we  subsequently 
reason  out  on  the  basis  of  all  that,  will  remain 
our  vital  philosophy  to  the  day  of  our  death. 
That  is  the  reason  why  little  children  are  often 
so  much  more  accurate  judges  of  character  than 
grown-up  people.  You  can  often  deceive  an 
adult  regarding  trustworthiness  of  character 
more  easily  than  you  can  deceive  a  little  child. 
There  is  an  alertness  of  instinct  in  the  child  that 
touches  the  core  of  character  more  surely  than 
any  of  our  mathematical  measurements  ever  do. 
You  remember  the  story  in  the  life  of  Robert 
Morrison,  who  was  obliged  to  come  to  this  coun- 
try in  order  to  secure  passage  as  a  missionary 
to  China,  and  to  whom  Mr.  Oliphant  gave  free 
passage  in  one  of  his  ships.  While  in  New 
York  he  was  entertained  at  the  home  of  a  gentle- 
man, who  afterwards  wrote  in  a  paper,  entitled 
"  Reminiscences  of  Dr.  Morrison,"  published  in 
the  New  York  Observer:  "  As  the  notice  had  been 
very  short,  he  was  placed,  for  the  first  night,  in 
our  own  chamber.  By  the  side  of  his  bed  stood 
a  crib,  in  which  slept  my  little  child.  On  awak- 
ing in  the  morning,  she  turned,  as  usual,  to  talk 
to  her  mother.  Seeing  a  stranger  where  she  ex- 
pected to  have  found  her  parents,  she  roused 
herself  with  a  look  of  alarm ;  but  fixing  her  eyes 
steadily  upon  his  face,  she  inquired,  *  Man,  do 
you  pray  to  God  ? '     *  O  yes,  my  dear,'  said  Mr. 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  39 

Morrison,  *  every  day.  God  is  my  best  friend/ 
At  once  reassured,  the  little  girl  laid  her  head 
contentedly  on  her  pillow,  and  fell  fast  asleep." 
The  little  child's  measurement  of  Morrison  had 
been  taken  and  she  had  gone  in  a  moment  home 
to  the  real  inner  character  of  the  man  whom  she 
was  judging,  with  an  accuracy  much  quicker 
than  the  stupid  ways  in  which  you  and  I 
would  have  tried  to  get  at  and  measure  that 
character. 

Our  hearts  know  a  thousand  things  that  we 
never  otherwise  discover.  Pascal  was  not  speak- 
ing extremely  when  he  wrote  in  his  "  Thoughts  " : 

"  The  heart  has  reasons  which  the  reason  does 
not  know.  It  is  the  heart  that  feels  God,  not 
the  reason.  There  are  truths  that  are  felt,  and 
there  are  truths  that  are  proved,  for  we  know 
truth  not  only  by  reason  but  by  the  intuitive 
conviction  which  may  be  called  the  heart.  The 
primary  truths  are  not  demonstrable,  and  yet 
our  knowledge  of  them  is  none  the  less  certain. 
Principles  are  felt;  propositions  are  proved. 
Truths  may  be  above  reason  and  yet  not  be 
contrary  to  reason.'* 

Many  of  us,  I  suppose,  have  proved  that  a 
lie  is  sometimes  justifiable  who  know  in  our 
hearts  that  it  is  not,  and  who  to  the  end  of  our 
lives  will  distrust  the  liar,  no  matter  how  much 
rational  justification  we  may  find  for  his  lie,  be- 


40       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

cause  back  of  all  our  intellectual  reasonings 
about  it  there  is  an  instinct  more  accurate  and 
correct  than  these. 

After  all,  love — one  real,  great  love,  by  which 
a  man  enters  into  the  infinite  with  his  life,  is  a  far 
more  potent  solvent  of  doubts  than  all  of  the 
speculations  he  can  spin  out  of  the  spider-body 
of  his  thought.  Real  love,  the  breaking  loose 
of  the  man's  true  under-nature,  the  real  deliv- 
ery of  the  man  to  himself  and  to  God, — that  sets 
more  men  free  to  the  truth  than  any  mathematical 
attempt  to  demonstrate  propositions  or  to  imveil 
the  unseen.  The  believing  heart  for  many  of 
us,  for  all  of  us,  is  the  only  road  by  which  we 
shall  come  to  the  truth  that  is  most  vital  to 
life. 

The  believing  heart,  in  the  second  place,  is 
ever  essential  to  the  living  of  a  consistent  and 
real  life.  There  never  was  yet  in  the  world  an 
absolutely  consistent  infidel.  Life  would  break 
down  for  the  man  who  did  not  live  practically  on 
faith,  however  much  theoretically  he  may  cast  it 
out  of  his  life.  You  remember  the  verses  which 
have  been  wrongly  attributed  to  Charles  Kings- 
ley: 

"  There  is  no  unbelief ! 

Whoever  plants  a  seed  beneath  the  sod, 

And  waits  to  see  it  push  away  the  clod, 

He  trusts  in  God. 

"  Whoever  says,  when  clouds  are  in  the  sky, 
*  Be  patient,  heart,  light  breaketh  by  and  by,* 
Trusts  the   Most  High. 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  41 

"Whoever  lies  down  on  his  couch  to  sleep, 
Content  to  lock  each  sense  in  slumber  deep, 
Knows  God  will  keep. 

"Whoever  says  *  to-morrow,'  'the  unknown/ 
*  The  future ' — trusts  unto  that  Power  alone 
He  dares  disown. 

"The  heart  that  looks  on  when  the  eyelids  closej 
And  dares  to  live  when  life  has  only  woes, 
God's  comfort  knows. 

"  There  is  no  unbelief: 
And  still  by  day  and  night,  unconsciously, 
The  heart  lives  by  the  faith  the  lips  decry, 
God  knoweth   why." 

It  seems  to  me  a  man  may  argue  against  infi- 
delity on  the  simple  ground  of  its  absolute  incon- 
sistency with  honesty  and  integrity  of  nature. 
You  cannot  succeed,  no  man  ever  yet  succeeded, 
in  living  a  faithless  life,  and  for  a  man  to  com- 
mit himself  to  a  philosophy  that  excludes  the 
possibility  of  faith  from  life  is  to  necessitate  a 
contradiction  in  his  soul,  for  he  cannot  live  at 
all  and  live  with  no  faith.  To  live  a  consistent 
life  or  any  life  a  man  has  to  make  room  some- 
where in  him  for  a  believing  heart  of  trust. 

It  is  the  only  way  to  live,  not  a  consistent  life 
alone,  but  a  life  that  is  real.  To  believe,  as  we 
do  and  must,  and  yet  to  play  the  sceptic,  is  just 
as  truly  to  lead  an  insincere  and  hypocritical 
life,  except  that  it  is  unconsciously  done,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  man  who  professes  to  be  what 
he   is   not,   who  claims  to  wear   the  badge   of 


42       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

Christ's  purity  while  he  lives  his  life  of  sin. 
The  believing  heart  is  essential  to  men  and 
women  if  they  will  live  a  real  life.  As  one 
thinks  of  the  materialistic  attitude  of  some  pro- 
fessors of  science  in  our  colleges  there  comes 
to  his  mind  the  protest  of  Walt  Whitman  in  be- 
half of  the  faith  that  is  back  of  the  figures: 

"  When  I  heard  the  learned  astronomer, 

When  the  proofs,  the  figures,  were  ranged  in  col- 
umns  before   me, 

When  I  was  shown  the  charts  and  diagrams,  to  add, 
divide,  and  measure  them, 

When  I  sitting  heard  the  astronomer  where  he  lec- 
tured with  much  applause  in  the  lecture  room. 

How  soon  unaccountable  I  became  tired  and  sick, 

Till  rising  and  gliding  out  I  wander'd  off  by  myself. 

In  the  mystical  moist  night  air,  and  from  time  to 
time, 

Look'd  up  In  perfect  silence  at  the  stars." 

No  man  can  break  away  from  the  unreality  of 
the  mechanical  chains  of  half -thinking,  away 
from  the  view  that  would  make  him  a  mere 
physiological  or  intellectual  machine,  into  the  real 
life  and  discover  his  soul  without  feeling  the  be- 
lieving heart  that  is  in  him  expand  to  lay  hold 
on  the  noble  ranges  of  a  real  life. 

Now,  I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  a  man 
should  have  a  credulous  heart.  I  believe  that  the 
most  credulous  heart  in  the  world  is  the  unbe- 
lieving heart,  that  the  man  who  is  most  careful 
about  truth,  the  man  who  knows  best  the  canons 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  43 

by  which  to  discriminate  it,  the  man  who  is  most 
cautious  about  what  he  accepts,  is  the  man  who 
has  a  believing  heart.  The  believing  heart  shuts 
us  out  from  the  possibility  of  believing  a  thou- 
sand follies  toward  which  the  man  of  unbeliev- 
ing heart  is  credulous.  A  few  years  ago  we 
received  in  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions  an  appHcation  for  appointment  as  a 
medical  missionary  from  a  young  doctor.  He 
sent  in  response  to  questions  a  list  of  references 
whom  the  Board  might  consult  regarding  his 
adaptation  for  missionary  work,  and  the  Board 
sent  to  each  of  these  men,  of  course,  a  list  of 
questions.  Among  the  answers  that  came  back 
was  quite  a  long  and  outspoken  reply  from  a 
doctor  in  an  inland  city  in  the  State  of  New 
York.  With  candour  and  evident  honesty  he 
answered  the  inquiries,  and  then  he  went  on  at 
the  end  to  say : 

"  I  do  not  attend  church  any  more.  I  formerly 
did,  but  stopped  because  I  saw  too  much  hypoc- 
risy and  I  refused  to  be  a  hypocrite  myself,  so 
I  think  you  can  trust  my  word." 

On  the  basis  of  the  testimonials  this  applicant 
was  discouraged,  and  the  matter  rested  for  a 
time,  and  then  I  wrote  to  the  doctor  who  had 
sent  this.  I  told  him  that  I  was  writing  to  him 
not  in  any  official  capacity,  but,  if  he  would  let 
me,  just  as  a  man  to  a  man,  and  I  wanted  to  dis- 


44      THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

cuss  with  hlrrij  if  he  was  willing,  the  question 
that  he  had  raised.    I  said  in  substance : 

"  You  do  not  regard  yourself  as  justified  In  re- 
fusing to  do  the  good  which  your  knowledge  of 
medicine  enables  you  to  do  because  yours,  of 
all  professions,  perhaps  because  of  its  very  no- 
bility, has  so  many  charlatans  and  quacks  in  It. 
You  would  not  think  of  pleading  this  hypocrisy 
as  a  reason  why  you  should  refuse  to  be  a  doctor 
and  as  a  doctor  to  do  good  in  the  world  and  alle- 
viate human  suffering." 

I  said  some  more  things  that  are  not  essential, 
and  this  is  the  letter  that  I  received  in  reply: 

"  I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  sincere  let- 
ter of  recent  date,  but  I  fear  you  have  under- 
taken too  tough  a  job  even  for  the  entire  Board 
of  Foreign  Missions.  The  reason  stated  In  my 
testimonial  was  of  course  the  truth,  and  per- 
haps was  the  primary  cause  of  my  present  state 
of  mind.  I  am  writing  frankly,  as  you  did.  You 
will  notice  I  said  '  too  much  hypocrisy.'  I  can 
stand  for  some,  as,  of  course,  it  Is  necessary  to 
do,  as  you  point  out.  But  in  my  opinion  there 
Is  more  of  It  In  church  than  In  everything  else 
combined.  Look  over  an  ordinary  congregation 
in  almost  any  walk  of  life.  Take  the  men ;  seven 
out  of  ten  do  not  do  or  try  to  do  as  they  prac- 
tically claim  to  do.    A  man  in  attending  church, 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  45 

in  my  opinion,  acknowledges  Christ  as  his  Master 
and  Saviour  and  agrees  to  do  as  nearly  as  possible 
what  Christ  would  do  in  the  same  circum- 
stances. Don't  you  think  nine  out  of  ten  would 
be  nearer?  Perhaps  my  definition  of  a  hypocrite 
is  too  exact,  shall  I  say  ?  Perhaps  I  should  relax 
it  a  little.  But  a  person  who  says  one  thing  Sun- 
day and  another  Monday  is  a  hypocrite.  A  man 
who  goes  to  church  on  Sunday  and  prays  to  be 
forgiven  for  the  sins  he  has  done  during  the 
week  and  then  goes  and  does  them  over  again  is 
a  hypocrite.  Am  I  too  severe  ?  Take  the  church 
of  which  you  are  a  member ;  scan  the  congrega- 
tion carefully;  does  not  the  result  surprise  you? 
Mind  you,  I  don't  want  you  to  think  only  of  the 

*  scoundrels  '  and  '  charlatans.'  But  entirely  out- 
side and  separate  from  this  is  an  insurmountable 
obstacle.  I  am  not  a  Christian.  I  do  not  believe 
in  a  personal  God.  I  believe  that  every  man 
should  do  as  nearly  as  possible  what  is  right,  as 
laid  down  by  Moses  and  Jesus.  I  believe  that 
Jesus  was  the  greatest  and  best  man  that  we 
have  any  record  of,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  He 
was  the  Son  of  God,  for  I  do  not  believe  that 
God  can  have  a  son,  any  more  than  '  Nature '  or 

*  Electricity '  can  have.  I  believe  that  the  uni- 
verse is  governed  by  immutable  laws  and  is  ruled 
by  an  all-powerful  force.  I  believe  that  this 
force  is  what  we  call  *  electricity.'  This  state- 
ment must  seem  absurd  to  you  and  you  must 
think  that  my  brain  is  turned,  but  I  assure  you 


46       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

that  this  is  not  the  case.  I  have  read  and  pon- 
dered on  this  subject  for  five  or  six  years,  yes, 
ten  years.  My  rehgion  is  all  I  need.  I  feel  abso- 
lutely satisfied  with  it.  What  more  do  I  want? 
I  threshed  over  this  subject  more  than  once  with 
my  pastor,  who  is  one  of  the  brightest  minds  I 
ever  knew,  and  he  has  acknowledged  that  I 
ought  not  to  go  to  church,  and  he  has  said,  *  Al- 
most thou  persuadest  me/  If  at  any  time  you 
wish  to  hear  from  me  further,  write  me.  I 
would  be  glad  to  hear  from  you  anyway.  I  am 
not  a  scoffer  at  religion,  nor  do  I  force  my  belief 
on  others.  Probably  not  more  than  a  dozen  peo- 
ple know  what  I  believe,  but  if  you  wish,  in  the 
future,  I  will  explain  my  reasons  for  my  belief." 

This  will  suffice  as  an  illustration  of  the  cre- 
dulity of  the  unbelieving  heart.  On  this  view, 
when  a  man  looks  at  a  great  landscape  or  the 
shimmer  of  the  moonlight  on  rippling  water  and 
feels  little  thrills  of  joy  run  through  his  soul,  it 
is  electricity.  When  his  little  child  creeps  up 
into  his  arms,  and  the  tears  of  a  great  love  fill 
his  eyes  and  his  heart  warms  and  glows  as  wave 
after  wave  of  God's  goodness  sweeps  over  him, 
it  is  electricity.  When  four  or  five  thousand 
men  witness  and  cheer  some  great  feat  of  hero- 
ism, when  a  martyr  dies  for  his  faith,  or  a  man 
lays  down  his  life  for  his  friends,  it  is  electricity. 
Can  there  be  anything  more  credulous  than  the 
unbeHeving  heart?     It  would  be  impossible  for 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  47 

us  to  lend  ourselves  to  any  such  opinions  as 
these.  Why  ?  Not  because  our  minds  are  trained 
differently  so  much  as  because  our  hearts  are 
believing  hearts.  The  only  road  to  a  sincere 
a;id  complete  life,  a  life  that  stands  squarely, 
that  is  ready  for  all  the  facts  of  the  world  and 
the  soul,  is  in  the  believing  heart.  You  remem- 
ber Von  Sturmer's  lines  prefixed  to  Richard 
Jeffries'  "Story  of  My  Heart": 

"Dim  woodlands  made  him  wiser  far 

Than  those  who  thresh  their  barren  thought 
With  flails  of  knowledge  dearly  bought. 
Till  all  his  soul  shone  like  a  star 

"That  flames  at  fringe  of  heaven's  bar. 

Where  breaks  the  surge  of  space  unseen 
Against  Hope's  veil  that  hangs  between 
Love's  future  and  the  woes  that  are." 

That  is  what  the  believing  heart  does  for  a  man. 
And,  once  more,  it  is  the  believing  heart 
alone  that  makes  it  possible  for  men  to  find  the 
will  of  God.  The  will  of  God  is  not  a 
proposition  to  be  demonstrated  by  syllogisms; 
the  will  of  God  is  an  obedience  discover- 
able only  to  sympathy,  and  no  one  of 
us  will  ever  find  the  will  of  God  for  his  life 
unless  he  finds  it  by  the  believing  heart  that 
opens  to  God  and  that  responds  with  filial  alac- 
rity to  every  intimation  of  His  will  to  us.  A 
Christian  lawyer  from  Cripple  Creek,  Col.,  told 
me  once,  as  we  talked  over  the  question  of  how 


48       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

a  man  might  get  his  life  righted,  of  an  experience 
of  his  own  years  ago,  when  in  a  great  deal  of 
perplexity  he  had  gone  to  his  old  pastor  to  ask 
him  for  help  as  to  how  he  might  get  his  life 
directed  aright.  He  said  the  old  man  simply 
turned  to  the  Thirty-second  Psalm  and  read  him 
these  tw^o  verses: 

"  I  will  instruct  thee  and  teach  thee  in  the  way 
which  thou  shalt  go;  I  will  counsel  thee  with 
mine  eye  upon  thee.  Be  ye  not  as  the  horse,  or 
as  the  mule,  which  have  no  understanding: 
whose  trappings  must  be  bit  and  bridle  to  hold 
them  in,  else  they  wall  not  come  near  unto  thee." 

Then  my  friend  said  the  old  man  shut  up  his 
Bible  and  turned  away.  At  first  he  felt  no  little 
resentment  at  his  pastor  for  this  curt  way  of 
replying  to  his  inquiry,  but  when  he  went  away 
and  thought  it  over  he  saw  that  the  whole  secret 
of  a  right  life  lay  just  here,  that  the  only  way 
in  w^hich  God  could  ever  guide  a  man  was  not 
by  some  mechanical  instruction,  not  by  fitting 
a  bit  into  the  man's  mouth  and  pulling  him 
this  way  and  that  with  a  rein,  but  by  planting 
in  his  heart  His  own  Spirit  and  letting  that 
Spirit  guide  him.  The  boy  goes  away  to  college 
from  his  father.  How  is  his  father  to  shape  the 
boy's  life?  There  is  no  code  of  instruction  that 
he  can  give  him  that  will  cover  all  the  emer- 
gencies and  exigencies  of  it.  He  can  only  try 
to  make  that  boy  his  boy,  so  that  when  he  goes 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  49 

the  father's  character  will  express  itself  in  the 
boy's  life.  I  remember  Dr.  Trumbull's  telling- 
years  ago  of  a  Connecticut  lad  who  had  grown 
up  on  a  farm  until  he  was  about  twenty  years 
of  age,  and  then  was  going  away  into  the  city 
to  make  his  own  fortune.  On  the  last  Sun- 
day evening  before  he  left  home  Dr.  Trumbull 
said  the  old  father  called  his  boy  and  said: 
"John,  you  are  going  away  from  home  to- 
morrow to  the  city.  I  would  like  to  have  a 
little  talk  with  you  before  you  go,  if  you 
wouldn't  mind."  Well,  the  boy  and  the  father 
had  always  lived  together  a  common  life,  and 
the  boy  went  out  with  his  father  to  walk  around 
over  the  farm  and  hear  his  father's  last  counsel. 
And  they  walked  down  to  one  of  the  meadows 
where  the  boy  had  played  from  his  infancy,  up 
over  the  hillside,  where  they  watched  the  sun 
set,  as  he  had  watched  it  for  many  years;  down 
through  the  fields  and  the  orchards  until  they 
came,  after  an  hour's  walk,  to  the  back  of  the 
house  again,  and  the  old  man  had  said  never  a 
word  to  his  son.  And  when  at  last  they  came 
to  the  gate  of  the  garden  and  were  about  to 
go  in,  the  old  man  turned  to  his  son  and  said: 
"  John,  I  have  only  one  thing  to  say  to  you — 
always  do  as  you  have  a  mind  to."  What  better 
could  he  say?  That  is  the  only  way  you  can 
guide  a  life.  You  cannot  guide  a  life  the  way 
you  would  guide  a  beast;  you  must  guide  a 
life  in  life's  way;  and  it  is  just  so  that  we  will 


50       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

get  our  guidance,  if  we  ever  get  it,  from  our 
Father.  "  My  son,"  He  will  say  to  us,  "  have 
you  the  mind  of  Christ?  "  "  I  hope  so,  Father," 
will  be  our  reply.  "  Well,"  He  will  say,  "  always 
do  as  you  have  a  mind  to,"  and  will  say  nothing 
more  to  us.  Unto  the  end  of  our  days  we  will 
get  no  clearer  divine  guidance  for  our  lives  than 
that,  and  will  need  none. 

Of  the  great  Christians  of  the  last  generation, 
George  Miiller  would  stand  out  first  before 
many  minds  as  an  unreasoning,  superstitious 
mystic.  May  I  read  you  out  of  his  own  life  his 
account  of  how  he  ascertained  the  will  of  God? 

"  I.  I  seek  at  the  beginning  to  get  my  heart 
into  such  a  state  that  it  has  no  will  of  its  own 
in  regard  to  a  given  matter. 

"  Nine-tenths  of  the  trouble  with  people  is  just 
here.  Nine-tenths  of  the  difficulties  are  over- 
come when  our  hearts  are  ready  to  do  the  Lord's 
will,  whatever  it  may  be.  When  one  is  truly  in 
this  state,  it  is  usually  but  a  little  way  to  the 
knowledge  of  what  His  will  is. 

"  2.  Having  done  this,  I  do  not  leave  the  re- 
sult to  feeling  or  simple  impression.  If  I  do  so, 
I  make  myself  liable  to  great  delusions. 

"  3.  I  seek  the  will  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
through,  or  in  connection  with,  the  Word  of 
God.  The  Spirit  and  the  Word  must  be  com- 
bined. If  I  look  to  the  Spirit  alone  without  the 
Word,  I  lay  myself  open  to  great  delusions  also. 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  51 

If  the  Holy  Ghost  guides  us  at  all,  He  will  do  it 
according  to  the  Scriptures  and  never  contrary 
to  them. 

"  4.  Next  I  take  into  account  providential 
circumstances.  These  often  plainly  indicate 
God's  will  in  connection  with  His  Word  and 
Spirit. 

"  5.  I  ask  God  in  prayer  to  reveal  His  will 
to  me  aright. 

"6.  Thus,  through  prayer  to  God,  the  study 
of  the  Word,  and  reflection,  I  come  to  a  delib- 
erate judgment  according  to  the  best  of  my 
ability  and  knowledge,  and  if  my  mind  is  thus  at 
peace,  and  continues  so  after  two  or  three  more 
petitions,  I  proceed  accordingly. 

"  In  trivial  matters,  and  in  transactions  involv- 
ing most  important  issues,  I  have  found  this 
method  always  effective." 

Surely  in  this  method  George  Miiller  reveals 
himself  as  a  man  of  as  great  practical  judgment, 
of  as  sound  discernment  of  the  method  of  the 
Christian  life  as  any  Christian  you  could  find  in 
this  or  any  day.  And  the  same  method  will 
work  in  our  case.  If,  to-day  and  to-morrow,  we 
want  to  know  what  God's  will  for  our  life  is,  we 
will  find  it  only  as  the  eyes  of  our  heart  are 
enlightened  that  they  may  see  the  things  that 
are  excellent  in  the  sight  of  Jesus  Christ. 

And  lastly,  the  believing  heart  is  the  secret  of 
the  possession  of  the  things  of  chiefest  value  in 


52       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

life.  It  is  the  secret  of  strength  and  power. 
Can  you  find  in  your  acquaintance,  now,  or  in 
all  human  history,  a  man  of  power  who  was 
not  a  man  of  a  believing  heart?  Such  men  may 
not  have  been  Christians,  but  they  had  the  atti- 
tude of  heart  which  should  have  made  them  so. 
Whether  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  very  evangel- 
ical believer  or  not  I  do  not  know,  but  the  heart 
of  a  Christian  was  in  him.  He  believed;  the 
eyes  of  the  inner  vision  had  been  enlightened. 
He  walked  through  those  dark  days  before  his 
flock  as  a  shepherd.  He  stood  in  the  midst  of 
those  surging  seas  like  a  great  rock  on  whose 
base  the  waves  broke  with  futility.  He  stood 
there  with  power  and  strength,  holding  the  love 
and  confidence  of  men,  four-square  to  every 
wind.  Why?  Because  his  heart  rested  on  God. 
You  remember  the  laconic  telegram  he  sent  to 
the  war  governor  of  Illinois.  Governor  Yates 
had  written  a  despairing  letter  to  the  great  man, 
whose  patient  heart  was  already  bearing  all 
that  human  heart  could  bear,  complaining  that 
hope  was  gone.  All  that  Lincoln  sent  back  in 
reply  was  the  brief  message,  ^'  Dick,  stand  still 
and  see  the  salvation  of  the  Lord."  And  if  one 
of  us  is  a  stronger  man  than  another,  if  he  has 
more  power  over  other  men,  if  he  is  one  of  those 
men  who  come  in  time  to  stand  out  above  other 
men  with  something  of  the  eternal  power  of  the 
hills,  so  that  other  men  rest  their  lives  on  him  and 
say,  "  While  he  believes  I  can  believe,"  it  is  be- 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  53 

cause  deep  in  that  man's  life  the  eyes  of  his 
heart  have  been  enlightened  to  see,  and  he  lives 
by  faith. 

The  believing  heart  is  the  only  secret  of  love. 
No  one  of  us  will  ever  learn  to  love  who  has  not 
a  heart  of  trust  and  faith.  And  the  best  things 
there  are  in  the  world  are  denied  to  us  if  the 
eyes  of  our  heart  being  unenlightened  we  have 
not  learned  in  the  school  of  Christ  to  love.  And 
in  those  days  when  the  storms  beat  on  our  lives 
and  we  do  not  know  whether  the  clouds  will 
ever  break  and  the  blue  sky  shine  again;  in 
the  times  when  it  seems  as  though  the  very 
foundations  had  dropped  out  beneath  us;  in 
those  times  when  we  are  numbered  with  the  men 
whom  Professor  Drummond  describes  in  one  of 
his  talks  as  the  men  who  fight  their  last  fight  with 
their  backs  against  the  wall,  with  no  room,  not 
another  step,  to  recede — if  we  shall  have  peace 
at  all  in  that  hour,  we  shall  get  it  through  our 
believing  hearts.  I  read  somewhere,  years  ago, 
of  a  Swiss  martyr  who  was  condemned  to  be 
burned,  and  as  he  stood,  before  the  fire  was  kin- 
dled around  his  stake,  he  turned  to  the  judge 
who  had  condemned  him  and  said :  "  Sir,  I 
have  one  last  request  to  make  of  you.  It  is  that 
you  will  put  your  hand  on  my  heart  first,  and 
then  lay  it  on  your  own,  and  then  tell  the  people 
which  heart  beats  more  violently."  Then  he 
stood  in  the  midst  of  the  fagots  and  the  flames, 
tranquil,  unmoved,  serene.     Through  the  smoke 


54       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

and  the  heat  he  endured  as  seeing  with  his  heart's 
eyes  by  faith  the  invisible. 

Some  of  us  have  lost  it,  haven't  we?  We 
would  give  anything  if  we  could  slip  back  across 
the  years  and  get  it  again — that  great  heart  of 
trust  that  we  had  when  we  were  little  children. 
Suspiciousness,  furtiveness,  doubt,  indirectness, 
unease,  all  those  things  which  we  know  when 
we  think  about  them  are  the  curse  of  character, 
have  slipped  into  our  lives.  Maybe  we  feel  the 
treasure  going  now.  Whether  it  is  going  or 
gone,  we  may  have  it  again  to-day.  Shall  we 
not  face  any  sacrifice  rather  than  lose  the  be- 
lieving heart  out  of  life?  What  other  loss  can 
equal  this? 

"  Upon  the  white  sea  sand 

There  sat  a  pilgrim  band, 
Telling  the  losses  that  their  lives  had  known. 

While   evening  waned   away 

From  breezy  cliff  and  bay, 
And  the  strong  tides  went  out  with  weary  moan. 

One  spoke  with  quivering  lip 

Of  a  fair  freighted  ship 
With  all  his  household,  to  the  deep  gone  down! 

But  one  had  wilder  woe 

For  a  fair  face,  long  ago 
Lost  in  the  darker  depths  of  a  great  town. 

There  were  some  who  mourned  their  youth 

With  a  most  loving  ruth 
For  the  brave  hopes  and  memories  ever  green; 

And  one  upon  the  West 

Turned  an  eye  that  would  not  rtst 


THE    BELIEVING    HEART  55 

For  far-off  hills  whereon  its  joy  had  been. 

Some  talked  of  vanished  gold, 

Some  of  proud  honors  told. 
Some  spake  of  friends  who  were  their  friends  no  more, 

And  one  of  a  green  grave 

Beside  a  foreign  wave, 
That  made  him  sit  so  lonely  on  the  shore. 

But  when  their  tales  were  done, 

There  spake  among  them  one, 
A  stranger,  seeming  from  all  sorrow  free: 

*  Sad  losses  ye  have  met. 
But  mine  is  heavier  yet, 

For  the  believing  heart  has  gone  from  me.* 

*  Alas  I  '  those  pilgrims  said, 
'For  the  living  and  the  dead. 

For  fortune's  cruelty,  for  love's  sure  cross, 

For  the  wrecks  of  land  and  sea ! 

But  howe'er  it  came  to  thee. 
Thine,  stranger,  is  life's  last  and  heaviest  loss, 

For  the  believing  heart  has  gone  from  thee — 

Ah !  the  believing  heart  has  gone  from  thee ! ' " 

Oh,  let  it  not  go  to-day !  Under  the  trees,  in 
our  rooms,  in  the  city  street,  let  us  kneel  down 
if  it  has  gone  and  pray  that  it  may  come  back 
to  us  again  as  we  open  up  our  hearts  of  childlike 
trust  unto  the  Saviour  in  whom  we  beheve. 


Ill 

CHRIST'S  APPEAL  TO  THE  DOUBTING 
HEART 

WHAT  we  have  just  been  considering 
generally  is  brought  home  to  us  con- 
cretely in  the  Master's  appeal  to  the 
man  who  represented  so  well  among  the  Apos- 
tles the  hesitant  spirit  of  our  own  day.  The 
Christian  centuries  which  intervened  between  the 
Apostolic  age  and  the  Reformation  are  often 
spoken  of  as  the  era  of  Peter.  The  Christian 
centuries  that  have  elapsed  since  the  Reforma- 
tion have  been  spoken  of  as  the  era  of  Paul. 
Some  have  suggested  that  as  the  era  of  Peter 
waned  and  gave  place  to  the  era  of  Paul,  so  the 
era  of  Paul  is  waning  to  give  place  in  our  day 
to  the  era  of  John.  It  may  be  true,  and  yet  one 
is  sometimes  inclined  to  think  that  this  is  the 
age  of  Thomas.  Above  all  the  other  Apostles 
he  seems  to  embody  those  types  of  character 
which  are  finding  dominant  expression  in  our 
own  day.  He  was  a  man  in  whom  the  specu- 
lative, reasoning  nature  was  above  the  vital;  a 
man  who  naturally  took  a  hesitant  attitude;  a 
critical  man ;  a  man  full  of  scruples,  whose  opin- 
ionative  nature  ruled  the  rest  of  his  life.  Every 
time  Thomas  appears  in  the  Gospel  of  John  he 
56 


APPEAL    TO    DOUBTING    HE^ART       5l 

is  shown  as  a  man  wanting  the  vitaHtles  and 
the  optimisms  of  the  beheving  nature.  He  was 
a  man  in  whom  the  critical  and  opinionative  dis- 
position had  gained  the  mastery  over  the  trustful, 
hopeful,  childlike  disposition  of  faith. 

He  appears  before  us  in  his  true  character 
especially  in  the  scene  described  in  the  twentieth 
chapter  of  John.  He  had  not  been  present  when 
Jesus  had  appeared  to  the  ten  Apostles,  and 
when  they  told  him  of  it  he  at  once  replied :  "  I 
will  not  believe  that  He  is  risen  from  the  dead 
unless  I  can  put  my  finger  into  the  print  of  the 
nails  in  His  hands,  and  unless  I  can  thrust  my 
hand  into  the  wound  in  His  side."  It  was  a 
very  coarse  way  of  stating  even  Thomas's  desire 
for  some  physical  evidence  of  Jesus's  resurrec- 
tion, and  it  was  an  indication  once  again  of  his 
want  of  that  trustful  disposition  which  would 
have  led  an  ordinary  man  to  believe  the  testi- 
mony of  the  ten  Apostles  and  of  Mary. 

On  the  eighth  day  after  this  Jesus  appeared 
in  the  upper  room  when  Thomas  was  present. 
Jesus  then  repeated  in  their  bald  detail  the  condi- 
tions that  Thomas  had  laid  down.  "  Thomas," 
He  said,  "  here  I  am.  Reach  hither  thy  finger 
and  put  it  into  My  hand.  Reach  hither  thy  hand 
and  put  it  into  My  side,  and  be  not  faithless,  but 
believing." 

Now  it  is  worth  noting  what  the  charge  was 
that  Jesus  laid  upon  Thomas.  He  did  not  criti- 
cise Thomas's  want  of  faith  in  any  particular 


58       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

event;  He  criticised  Thomas's  moral  and  intel- 
lectual disposition.  He  did  not  say,  ''  Now  that 
the  evidence  has  been  presented  to  you,  be- 
lieve in  this  fact  of  My  resurrection  " ;  He  said, 
"  Now  that  you  have  had  evidence  to  convince 
you  of  this  one  fact,  can  you  not  lay  aside  your 
speculative,  your  debating,  your  opinionative  dis- 
position, and  have  a  faithful  and  believing  tem- 
per, such  as  my  other  disciples  here  have?  Be 
not  a  faithless,  but  a  believing  man." 

Then,  strange  to  say,  this  man  forgot  all  about 
the  conditions  that  he  laid  down,  on  the  fulfil- 
ment of  which  alone  he  said  he  was  willing  to 
believe  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  without 
any  desire  to  apply  the  test  he  fell  on  his  knees, 
crying  out,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God."  He  was 
satisfied,  not  with  the  presentation  to  his  physi- 
cal senses  of  the  evidence  that  he  had  demanded, 
but  with  the  touch  upon  his  personality  of  the 
personality  of  Jesus.  His  answer  is  the  sublim- 
est  confession  in  the  Gospels ;  it  affirms  just  what 
he  had  been  doubting — **  My  Lord  and  my  God." 

Now,  we  have  here  the  two  great  elements  of 
Christian  life  and  faith  and  thought.  On  the 
one  hand  the  offered  personality  of  Christ,  wait- 
ing to  touch  our  personalities ;  on  the  other  hand 
the  accepting  will  of  Thomas  answering  to  the 
offered  personality  of  Jesus.  These  are  the  two 
great  facts  of  life,  of  thinking,  of  belief,  of  re- 
ligion, distinctly  of  our  Christian  faith. 

A  divine  personality  is  offered  to  the  heart  of 


APPEAL    TO    DOUBTING    HEART       59 

man.  This  is  what  revelation  is.  The  substance 
of  revelation  is  not  truth ;  the  substance  of  reve- 
lation is  person.  What  God  was  doing  through 
all  the  years  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation 
was  not  slowly  making  men  familiar  with  a  few 
veracious  facts,  or  any  system  of  principles  or 
truth.  He  was  showing  men  Himself.  The  com- 
munication of  truth  is  only  a  means  to  the 
communication  of  person,  of  spirit,  of  life.  The 
whole  Old  Testament  dispensation  was  just  a 
long  attempt  on  the  part  of  God  to  reveal  Him- 
self to  the  heart  of  man  under  and  over  certain 
laws,  under  and  over  certain  precepts,  under 
and  over  certain  principles  or  commandments. 
When  Moses  asked  His  name,  and  who  he 
should  say  had  sent  him  when  he  went  as  the 
ambassador  of  God,  Jehovah  said  to  him,  "  1 
AM  THAT  I  AM,  and  wheu  anyone  asketh  thee 
who  sent  thee,  thou  shalt  say,  I  am  hath  sent 
me."  The  God  of  character,  the  God  of  per- 
son, the  God  of  being;  not  the  God  of  descrip- 
tion, not  the  God  of  metaphysical  idea,  not  the 
God  of  intellectual  notion;  the  real  living  God 
of  spirit  and  person  and  life,  as  He  said  to 
Moses,  was  striving  through  all  the  years  of  the 
Old  Testament  history  to  reveal  Himself  to  men. 
When  Christ  came,  therefore,  it  was  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  way,  as  a  self-revelation  to  life. 
He  convinced  Thomas  in  the  little  upper  room — 
Thomas,  who  thought  he  would  not  be  con- 
vinced except  by  certain  physical  evidences  pre- 


60       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

sented  to  his  senses — by  the  touch  of  His  own 
personaHty  upon  Thomas's  spiritual  nature,  and 
Thomas  answered  by  the  surrender  of  his  own 
life  to  Christ,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God." 

Christ  addresses  His  appeal  to  the  whole  per- 
sonality, the  willing  nature,  rather  than  to  man's 
opinion  as  supreme  over  the  rest  of  his  life. 
You  can  see  all  through  Christ's  earthly  history, 
in  the  method  of  His  dealing  with  men,  hcfw  He 
strove  to  exalt  this  conception  of  His  mission, 
and  how  He  sought  to  enable  men  to  meet  Him 
on  the  plane  of  full  personality,  of  highest  testi- 
mony. On  the  night  of  the  supper  Philip  broke 
in  upon  the  answer  which  Jesus  was  giving  to 
Thomas's  difficulty  with  the  request,  "  Lord, 
show  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us."  He 
wanted  some  physical  manifestation  of  the 
Father,  some  revelation  of  Him  that  would 
coerce  the  senses,  that  would  lead  opinion  into 
bondage  and  force  it,  irrespective  of  the  integ- 
rity and  dignity  of  the  complete  nature,  to  assent 
to  the  presence  of  God  and  the  claims  of  God. 

Christ's  answer  was :  "  Have  I  been  so  long 
time  with  you,  and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  me, 
Philip?  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the 
Father;  and  how  sayest  thou  then,  Shew  us  the 
Father?  Believest  thou  not  that  I  am  in  the 
Father,  and  the  Father  in  Me?  The^ words  that 
I  speak  unto  you  I  speak  not  of  Myself,  but  the 
Father  that  dwelleth  in  Me,  He  doeth  the  works. 
Relieve  me  that  I  am  in  the  Father,  and  the 


APPEAL    TO    DOUBTING    HEART       6l 

Father  in  Me:  or  else — if  that  is  too  high,  and 
your  heart  does  not  answer  at  once  to  My  heart, 
if  the  spirit  of  man  that  is  in  you  does  not 
instantly  respond  to  the  Spirit  of  God  that  is  in 
Me,  well,  I  will  drop  down  to  a  lower  plane — 
believe  Me  for  the  very  works'  sake." 

Our  Lord  has  every  kind  of  evidence  to  pre- 
sent to  man.  The  man  who  cannot  believe  save 
on  the  plane  of  historic  proof  can  find  evidence 
enough  on  that  plane  to  support  Christ's  claims  ; 
but  what  Christ  strove  for  constantly  with  men 
was  to  get  them  to  assent  to  His  claims  upon 
their  lives  on  the  high  ground  of  the  self-reve- 
lation in  Him  of  God  the  Father  to  man  the 
son,  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  the  spirit  of  man 
that  is  within  men,  that  was  born  of  the  Spirit 
of  God,  and  that  finds  its  true  life  and  anchor- 
age only  in  rich,  responsive  answer  to  the  Spirit 
of  God. 

The  same  principle  was  manifested  in  the  par- 
able of  the  Good  Shepherd.  He  had  told  the 
Jews  that  His  sheep  knew  His  voice  and  fol- 
lowed Him.  It  was  the  only  way  in  which  they 
discovered  that  He  was  their  shepherd  or  showed 
Him  that  they  were  His  sheep.  Every  one  whom 
the  Father  had  given  Him  would  recognise  His 
voice  and  come  to  Him,  and  He  would  know 
each  one  of  them  by  name.  That  was  too  high 
for  the  Jews,  and  John  tells  us  that  they  took  up 
stones  to  stone  Him.  Then  He  drops  down 
again,  as  He  did  with  Philip,  to  the  lower  level 


62       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

of  argument,  and  says,  "  For  which  of  My 
works  do  you  stone  Me  ? "  They  said,  "  For 
none  of  Your  works,  but  because  You,  being  a 
man,  make  Yourself  God."  He  took  up  their 
thought,  not  denying  that  He  had  made  Himself 
God,  but  contending  that  the  works  He  had 
done  were  in  themselves  sufficient  evidence  that 
He  was  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  He  had  the 
right  to  make  these  claims  on  the  lives  of  men 
that  He  was  making  on  theirs.  He  would  drop 
down  to  the  evidence  of  Thomas,  to  the  plane 
of  Thomas's  desire,  whenever  men  insisted  that 
He  should,  but  only  when  He  had  exhausted 
His  attempt  to  get  the  hearts  of  men  to  answer 
straight  and  clear  to  His  heart.  But  when  Jesus 
had  once  offered  this  lower  physical  evidence  to 
Thomas,  Thomas  wanted  none  of  it.  He  had 
come  now  into  the  presence  of  Christ,  where  he 
was  able  to  take  in  the  kind  of  testimony  he  had 
not  been  able  to  recognise  before,  and  he  an- 
swered straight  out  of  his  own  soul  to  the  soul 
of  Christ. 

I  have  a  friend  who  has  a  distorted  hand.  Do 
you  think  it  is  necessary  for  me  every  time  I 
meet  that  friend  to  ask  him  to  let  me  feel  his 
distorted  hand  to  make  sure  that  it  is  he?  I 
know  that  when  he  and  I  sit  down  together  and 
our  hearts  have  touched,  that  he  and  I  are  there, 
without  any  gross  sensual  evidence  gained  by 
feeling  his  withered  hand.  It  was  even  so  with 
Jesus.    He  would  let  men  feel,  if  they  wanted, 


APPEAL    TO    DOUBTING    HEART       63 

the  nail  print  in  His  hand.  He  would  allow 
men,  if  they  must,  butcher-like  to  thrust  their 
hands  into  the  wound  in  His  side ;  but  when  once 
He  had  offered  Himself  to  men  for  the  satisfac- 
tion of  their  desire  for  that  kind  of  testimony, 
their  desire  for  that  kind  of  testimony  was  gone, 
and  they  fell  down  on  their  faces  before  Him, 
and  the  heart  of  man  answered  to  the  heart  of 
Christ  with  Thomas's  cry,  "  My  Lord  and  my 
God." 

Now,  because  Jesus  Christ  addressed  His 
word  in  this  way  to  the  highest  in  man,  to  what 
is  in  man  of  God's  nature,  He  was  constantly 
defining  faith  in  properly  corresponding  terms. 
There  are  very  few  passages  in  the  Gospels 
where  Christ  uses  the  word  "  faith  "  or  the  word 
*'  believe "  to  describe  an  intellectual  attitude 
toward  certain  truth.  Constantly,  Christ  uses 
faith  as  a  term  that  is  not  applicable  to  the  re- 
lation of  a  man  to  an  opinion,  or  of  a  man  to 
a  thing.  He  uses  faith  as  a  term  that  is  appli- 
cable only  to  the  relation  of  a  person  to  a  person. 
I  believe,  not  things  that  people  tell  me,  I  be- 
lieve the  people  themselves,  and  my  belief  in 
them  is  faith.  A  little  child,  knowing  very  little 
of  life,  sits  on  the  father's  knee  learning  its  first 
lessons  of  life,  and  believes  what  the  father  tells 
it.  Now  its  beHef  in  what  the  father  says  is  not 
an  act  of  faith,  it  is  a  fruit  of  faith.  It  is  the 
relationship  of  confidence  between  the  child  and 
the  father  that  makes  the  child  believe  anything 


64       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

the  father  says,  and  its  belief  in  what  the  father 
tells  is  simply  one  of  the  accessory  sequences  of 
its  faith  in  the  father.  Faith,  with  Jesus,  is  per- 
sonal confidence  in  Himself.  Faith,  with  Jesus, 
is  the  answer  of  a  man's  soul  to  His  soul,  the 
tourh  of  a  man's  personality,  upon  His  person- 
ality, the  surrender  of  a  willing  life  to  Jesus 
Christ  as  its  Lord  and  its  King. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  unreasonable  in  this 
view  of  faith.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  Hfe  rests 
on  faith  of  just  this  kind.  Business  life  does. 
What  makes  prosperity?  The  fact  that  times 
are  good?  Not  necessarily.  Men's  belief  that 
times  are  good.  What  creates  a  panic?  Hard 
times?  Not  at  all,  of  necessity,  but  man's  belief 
that  hard  times  are  coming,  man's  want  of  con- 
fidence, man's  loss  of  faith.  It  often  happens 
that  the  years  after  a  panic  are  really  more 
arduous  years,  less  prosperous  years  than  the 
years  during  which  the  panic  was  upon  men.  It 
is  the  loss  of  faith,  the  loss  of  the  atmosphere 
of  trust,  the  loss  of  the  spirit  of  confidence  that 
destroys  society.  It  is  the  presence  of  faith, 
of  confidence,  of  trust,  not  primarily  of  opinion, 
not  primarily  of  intellectual  agreement,  that 
holds  society  together.  Opinion  has  its  place, 
but  it  is  not  the  first  place. 

It  is  the  spirit  of  faith  and  of  trust  that 
underlies  our  physical  life  and  makes  it  possible. 
The  veriest  sceptic,  as  we  have  seen,  is  living  by 
trust.    He  is  trusting  in  the  continuity  of  nature. 


APPEAL    TO    DOUBTING    HEART       65 

which  is  only  another  name,  and  a  poorer  one, 
for  the  fidelity  of  God.  He  is  trusting  to  this 
law  or  that,  which  is  only  an  impersonal  state- 
ment of  some  one  of  God's  minor  activities.  He 
trusts  that  his  food  will  work  out  certain  results ; 
that  taking  sleep  will  produce  certain  conse- 
quences ;  that  when  he  walks  out  on  the  face  of 
the  earth  the  stars  will  not  fall  down  on  him  and 
crush  him.  I  say  the  most  honest  sceptic  that 
ever  lived  was  compelled  by  the  very  necessities 
of  his  life  to  confine  his  scepticism  in  the  honest 
application  of  it  to  only  part  of  his  life.  It  is 
impossible  for  man  to  live  except  in  the  spirit 
of  confidence  and  faith. 

Far  more  is  this  true  in-  the  realm  of  our 
higher  life.  We  live,  as  Paul  says,  by  faith. 
We  live  by  fellov/ship.  We  live  by  confidence. 
We  live  by  trust.  We  live,  not  by  reasoning  out 
God's  dealing  with  us,  not  by  the  adjustment  of 
certain  mental  opinions — no  man  gets  more  than 
an  inch  or  two  toward  the  goal  by  that  means — 
but  by  the  willing  adjustment  of  the  volitional 
life  to  a  trust  in  God  and  the  laws  of  God. 

And,  accordingly,  Jesus  Christ  in  preaching 
His  gospel  made  His  preaching  pre-eminently 
just  an  assertion  of  Himself.  "  Believe  Me,"  He 
said.  "  Believe  in  Me."  We  see  this  in  all  its 
beauty  in  the  last  paragraph  of  the  ninth  chap- 
ter of  John,  in  the  story  of  the  man  born  blind. 
After  the  man  was  cast  out  from  the  synagogue 
Jesus  found  him,  and  said  unto  him,  "  Dost  thou 


66       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

believe  in  the  Son  of  God?"  And  he  said, 
"  Who  is  He,  Lord,  that  I  may  believe?"  And 
Jesus  said,  "  Thou  hast  both  seen  Him,  and  He 
it  is  that  speaketh  with  thee."  Immediately  the 
man  responded,  "  Lord,  I  believe,"  and  he  wor- 
shipped Him. 

Even  those  parts  of  Christ's  teaching  which 
are  admired  by  people  most  hostile  to  Christ's 
claims  are  fullest  of  Christ's  assertiveness.  I 
wonder  if  you  can  find  in  all  of  Christ's  teach- 
ings anything  more  assertive  of  His  claims,  of 
His  supremacy,  of  His  uniqueness,  than  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount.  And  so  at  other  times,  "  I 
am  the  light  of  the  world.  I  am  the  bread  of 
God  which  came  down  out  of  heaven  to  give  life 
to  the  world.  I  am  the  Messiah.  I  am  the  Son 
of  God.     I  and  my  Father  are  one." 

Jesus  Christ  presented  Himself  in  this  way, 
because  that  is  just  what  He  came  here  for. 
Christ  was  not  the  preacher  of  the  message, 
Christ  was  the  message.  Christianity  differen- 
tiates itself  from  every  other  religion.  Christ  is 
His  own  religion.  A  man  who  entered  His  re- 
ligion entered  Christ.  The  man  who  began  to 
learn  His  religion  learned  Christ.  The  man 
who  began  to  feed  himself  with  what  that  re- 
ligion provided,  ate  of  Christ's  flesh  and  drank 
of  Christ's  blood.  And  so  Christ  made  His  word 
a  direct  appeal  to  the  will  of  men,  to  the  whole 
living  nature  of  men,  and  never  once  an  appeal 
merely  to  that  part  of  man  which  lies  within  the 


APPEAL    TO    DOUBTING    HEART       67 

sphere  of  his  opinionative  powers.  Jesus  Christ 
spoke  straight  home  to  the  whole  Hfe  of  man 
and  demanded  that  man  surrender  all  his  will 
and  his  whole  Hfe  to  Him.  BeHef,  He  told  men, 
was  an  activity  of  their  whole  nature,  and  not 
a  mere  matter  of  their  thought.  Belief,  He  told 
them,  was  the  great  and  necessary  thing.  A  few 
acts  of  outside  conduct,  a  few  precepts  as  to  be- 
haviour, these  were  comparatively  trifling  mat- 
ters with  Him,  because  the  great  causative 
forces  of  conduct  are  the  important  things. 
What  He  wanted,  as  He  told  them,  was  to  lay 
His  hand  on  that  spring  of  life  within,  out  of 
which  came  the  things  which  defile  the  true 
life  and  which  is  the  source  of  all  man's  external 
conduct  and  behaviour. 

Christ  spoke  right  home  to  the  personalities 
of  those  to  whom  He  spoke.  In  the  midst  of 
great  crowds  He  would  separate  Himself  and 
one  man  immediately  from  all  the  crowd,  that 
He  might  bear  home  to  the  heart  of  that  one  man 
His  personal  offer  of  life.  He  would  see  in  the 
man's  face,  He  would  catch  in  the  man's  bear- 
ing, some  faint  intimation  that  the  man  was  hear- 
ing, though  far  off,  the  true  note  of  His  voice, 
and  perhaps  recognising  in  it  the  accents  of  the 
Father's  voice,  and  straightway  Christ  spoke 
His  message  home  to  the  heart  and  life  of  that 
man. 

He  never  tired  of  insisting,  as  He  spoke  to  the 
Jews,  that  their  difficulty  was  not  an  intellectual 


68       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

difficulty.  It  was  a  moral  and  vital  one.  "  Ye 
will  not  come  to  Me,"  He  said,  "  that  ye  might 
have  life.  Ye  cannot  hear  My  voice  because  you 
are  not  willing  to  hear  My  voice.  Ye  are  not  of 
My  Father,  and  therefore  ye  will  not  hear  Me. 
Ye  are  the  sons  of  the  devil  and  the  works  of 
your  father  ye  will  do.  I  come  in  My  Father's 
name  and  ye  will  not  receive  Me.  Some  other 
man  will  come  in  his  own  name  and  him  ye  will 
receive."  And  so,  over  and  over  again,  He  told 
them  that  what  He  wanted  of  them  as  a  test  of 
their  acceptance  of  Him  was  not  mimic-like 
repetition  of  a  few  formulas,  was  not  crying 
out  in  the  market-places,  "  Lord,  Lord,"  it  was 
a  keeping  of  His  commandments.  "  Ye  are  my 
friends  if  you  bring  your  lives  into  surrender 
and  obedience  to  Me."  "  If  ye  love  Me,  ye  will 
keep  my  commandments.  If  ye  love  Me,  ye  will 
do  what  I  have  commanded  you,  and  My  Father 
will  love  you,  and  We  will  come  to  you  and  will 
make  Our  abode  with  you." 

Jesus  Christ  is  making  His  appeal  to  the 
whole  of  our  life;  He  is  offering  us  the  whole 
of  Himself  to  be  appropriated  by  the  whole  of 
ourselves.  He  is  offering  us  His  life  in  exchange 
for  ours.  He  is  offering  us  Himself  in  ex- 
change for  ourselves.  His  divinity  for  our  hu- 
manity ;  and  all  that  He  asks  of  us  is  not  that  we 
should  adjust  ourselves  to  a  certain  opinionative 
attitude  toward  Him — -we  shall  do  that  all  right 
in  time  if  we  do  this  other — but  that  we  should 


APPEAL    TO    DOUBTING    HEART       69 

bring  ourselves,  as  He  Himself  put  it,  into  the 
temperament  and  atmosphere  of  a  little  child. 
"  Except  ye  be  converted  and  become  as  little 
children,  ye  shall  never  enter,  ye  shall  not  even 
recognise  the  kingdom  of  Heaven/' 

But  some  one  may  say :  "  Is  opinion,  then,  of 
no  account?  May  I  think  just  what  I  please,  so 
long  as  I  have  right  feelings  toward  Christ  ? " 
By  no  means.  What  a  man  thinks  is  of  vast 
account.  It  is  one  of  Christ's  own  questions, 
"What  think  ye  of  Christ?"  Christ  Himself 
was  always  insisting  that  His  appeal  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  will  of  man  as  a  reasonable  will. 
He  made  appeal  in  reasonable  ways.  He  as- 
sumed that  man  himself,  even  in  his  most  voli- 
tional life,  is  a  reasoning  creature,  and  He  came 
down  to  deal  with  men,  in  a  measure  no  other 
great  religious  teacher  ever  did,  upon  the  plane 
of  man's  inquiring  apprehension,  and  ready  to 
make  perfectly  clear  to  men  the  enigmas  of 
His  faith  in  His  own  good  time.  What  I  insist 
on  is  that  we  are  wrong  in  subjugating  the  will, 
the  life,  the  power  of  vision,  the  inalienable  in- 
stincts of  being,  and  Christ  Himself  to  our  mere 
opinionative  nature;  that  we  do  despite  to  our 
own  life  when  we  trample  underfoot  our  own 
constitution,  when  we  pick  out  wilfully  one  de- 
partment of  our  life  and  deliberately  make  all 
the  rest  of  our  life  the  slave  of  that ;  when  in  this 
day  we  keep  insisting  that  physical  evidence,  the 
meanest  and  grossest  kind  of  all  evidence,  is  the 


70       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

only  evidence  which  can  accredit  truth  to  us. 
What  I  insist  on  is  that  Jesus  Christ  makes  His 
appeal  to-day  just  as  He  did  in  the  days  of 
Thomas,  not  to  the  putting  of  fingers  in  the  nail 
prints  of  His  hands  not  to  the  putting  of  hands 
in  the  spear  wound  m  His  side,  but  to  the  sense 
that  will  be  born  in  men  whenever,  with  the 
heart  of  a  child,  they  desire  to  be  made  like 
Christ,  when  they  believe  that  they  are  Christ's 
friends  and  that  Christ  is  theirs;  when  they  ac- 
cept a  moral  attitude,  a  spiritual  atmosphere,  the 
feeling  of  love  and  of  kinship  and  of  desire,  the 
surrender  of  life  that  led  Thomas  to  cry,  "  My 
Lord  and  my  God."  This  is  the  foundation  of 
spiritual  life,  the  foundation  of  all  true  life  of 
whatsoever  sort. 

Just  in  proportion  as  we  understand  this,  and 
perceive  that  Jesus  Christ  appeals  to  the  highest 
and  most  splendid  in  us,  will  He  be  able  to  lead 
us  out  into  His  own  fulness  of  power.  "  If  any 
man  will  do  My  will/'  He  said,  "  intellectually 
he  shall  be  freed  from  difficulty  in  time.  He 
that  beheveth  on  Me,  out  from  the  depths  of  his 
life  shall  pour  torrents  of  living  water.  He  that 
believeth  on  Me  shall  do  not  only  what  I  have 
done,  but  greater  things  than  these  shall  he  do 
because  I  go  unto  My  Father." 

Jesus  is  offering  Himself  to  us  in  this  vital 
way,  not  in  any  dead,  mechanical  fashion;  not 
as  a  physical  body  laid  outside  of  us,  to  be  han- 
dled as  men  handle  the  bodies  of  men  which  are 


APPEAL    TO    DOUBTING    HEART       71 

shells  of  men,  not  men;  but  as  the  living  Spirit 
of  God,  sent  here  to  touch  the  living  spirits  of 
men.  And  those  of  us  who  are  His  sheep  will 
hear  His  voice  and  will  follow  Him.  And  that 
is  the  only  essential  thing.  Everything  else  fol- 
lows in  its  own  good  time,  and  doubt,  perplexity, 
hesitancy  over  this  matter  of  opinion  or  that 
matter,  find  their  full  solution  in  the  lives  of  the 
men  who  are  willing  to  do  His  will.  Shairp 
gathers  up  what  I  have  been  saying  in  his  verses : 

"I  have  a  life  with  Christ  to  live, 
And,  ere  I  live  it,  must  I  wait 
Till  learning  can  clear  answer  give 
Of  this  and  that  book's  date? 

"I  have   a  life  in  Christ  to  live; 
I  have  a  death  in  Christ  to  die; 
And  must  I  wait  till  science  give 
All  doubts   a  full  reply? 

"  Nay ;  rather,  while  the  sea  of  doubt 
Is  raging  wildly  round  about, 
Questioning  of  life  and  death  and  sin, 
Let  me  but  creep  within 
Thy  fold,  O  Christ,  and  at  Thy  feet 
Take  but  the  lowest  seat; 
And  hear  Thine  awful  voice  repeat. 
In  gentlest  accents  heavenly  sweet, 

'Come  unto  me  and  rest; 
Believe  me  and  be  blest.'" 


IV 

THE  HEARTS  RESPONSE  TO  THE  MAS- 
TER'S   CALL 

FROM  one  point  of  view,  there  are  two 
Christs.  There  is  the  Christ  within.  And 
the  experience  of  the  Hfe  in  which  Christ 
dwells  is  expressed  in  Paul's  great  words :  "  To 
me  to  live  is  Christ."  "  When  Christ,  Who  is 
our  life,  shall  appear,  then  shall  ye  also  appear 
with.  Him  in  glory."  "  I  am  crucified  with 
Christ ;  nevertheless  I  live ;  yet  not  I,  but  Christ 
liveth  in  me."  Then  there  is  another  Christ — 
the  outer  Christ.  Of  course  the  Christ  who 
would  dwell  within  is  the  Christ  without,  until 
the  door  of  the  life  is  opened  to  let  Him  in ;  but 
even  when  He  has  been  admitted,  there  is  an 
outer  Christ  still — a  Christ  who  lays  a  law  upon 
the  Hfe  as  well  as  lives  a  Hfe  within  the  life ;  and 
the  words  of  the  experience  of  the  outer  Christ 
are  such  words  as  these:  "A  new  command- 
ment give  I  unto  you."  "  Ye  are  my  friends,  if 
ye  do  whatsoever  I  command  you." 

From  one  point  of  view  there  are  two  Christs. 

And  yet  we  know  that  there  is  only  one  Christ, 

and  that  the  outer  is  the  inner  Christ,  that  the 

Christ  who  dwells  within  is  the  Christ,  also,  to 

n 


THE    HEART'S    RESPONSE  7S 

Whom  our  eyes  are  turned  without.  They  make 
a  vain  endeavour  who  try  to  get  along  with  one 
or  the  other  of  these  two  Christs,  excluding  the 
one  with  Whom  they  wish  to  have  little  to  do. 
Those  who  think  they  can  have  the  Christ  with- 
out, without  also  accepting  the  Christ  within, 
or  the  Christ  within  without  also  accepting  the 
Christ  without,  can  have  neither  Christ  in  His 
fulness. 

Now,  the  call  of  the  Christ  of  the  inner  life  is 
such  a  word  as  this :  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  you,  except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of 
Man,  and  drink  His  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in 
you."  And  the  call  of  the  outer  Christ  is  such 
a  word  as  this :  "  If  ye  love  Me,  keep  My  com- 
mandments." We  must  often  be  confused  by 
the  effort  of  men  to  keep  these  two  Christs  apart, 
and  perhaps  there  are  few  of  us  who  are  not 
often  thrown  into  confusion  by  our  own  thought 
of  a  Christ  within  and  a  Christ  without,  whose 
missions  we  attempt  to  keep  separate  one  from 
the  other.  The  two  Christs  are  one.  Is  there 
any  call  of  the  common  Christ,  following  which 
we  shall  be  able  to  surmount  the  difficulties 
which  come  from  trying  to  sever  the  call  of 
the  Christ  within  from  the  call  of  the  Christ 
without?  I  think  there  is  such  a  call,  and  that 
it  was  equally  the  primal  and  the  final  call  of 
Jesus  to  men :     "  Follow  Me !  " 

Our  Lord  walked  by  the  shores  of  the  Sea 
of   Galilee,   and  saw   Simon   and   Andrew    his 


74       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

brother  casting  a  net  in  the  sea,  for  they  were 
fishers,  and  He  said  to  them,  "  Follow  Me,"  and 
they  left  their  nets  and  followed  Him.  Walk- 
ing further,  He  saw  John  and  James,  his  brother, 
mending  their  nets  in  their  boat,  and  He  called 
to  them,  and  they  left  their  father  Zebedee  and 
followed  Him.  A  few  days  later,  as  He  came 
out  of  a  city  in  which  He  had  been  preaching, 
He  passed  a  publican  sitting  at  the  receipt  of 
custom,  and  He  said  to  him,  "  Follow  Me,"  and 
he  rose  and  left  his  money  tables  and  followed 
Him.  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  were  on 
their  way  to  Jerusalem,  that  one  came  to  Him 
and  said,  "  I  will  follow  Thee  whithersoever 
Thou  goest."  And  He  answered  and  said  unto 
him,  "  Foxes  have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the 
air  have  nests;  but  the  Son  of  Man  hath  not 
where  to  lay  His  head."  And  He  said  unto  an- 
other, "  Follow  Me,"  and  he  said,  "  Suffer  me 
first  to  go  and  bury  my  father."  He  said  to 
him,  "  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead ;  but  go 
thou  and  preach  the  kingdom  of  God."  And 
another  said  to  Him,  "  Lord,  I  will  follow  Thee ; 
but  suffer  me  first  to  go  and  say  farewell  to 
them  that  are  at  home  at  my  house  " ;  and  He 
said  to  him,  "  No  man,  having  put  his  hand  to 
the  plough,  and  looking  back,  is  fit  for  the  king- 
dom of  God."  And  as  He  went  on  in  the  way 
a  young  man  came  to  Him,  and  said,  "  Master, 
what  good  thing  shall  I  do  that  I  may  have 
eternal   life  ? "     And   He   said  to   him,   ''  Why 


THE    HEART'S    RESPONSE  75 

askest  thou  Me  concerning  that  which  is  good? 
One  is  good,  even  God.  Keep  the  command- 
ments." And  the  man  said  to  Him,  "  Which 
commandments  ?  "  And  He  replied,  "  Thou  shalt 
not  kill;  thou  shalt  not  steal;  thou  shalt  not 
commit  adultery;  thou  shalt  not  bear  false  wit- 
ness; thou  shalt  honour  thy  father  and  mother, 
and  thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself.'* 
And  the  young  man  said  to  Him,  "  All  these 
have  I  observed;  what  lack  I  yet?"  He  said  to 
him,  "  If  thou  wouldst  be  perfect,  go  and  sell 
what  thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  thou 
shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven ;  and  come  and  fol- 
low Me." 

Now,  these  were  all  calls  of  Christ  to  men 
practically  at  His  first  meetings  with  them;  but 
if  you  study  the  Gospels,  you  will  find  that 
Christ's  call  to  men  who  had  been  with  Him 
for  three  long  years  was  still  the  same,  "  Follow 
Me."  On  the  last  night  of  His  intercourse  with 
them,  He  knew  no  better  way  to  sound  them  the 
call  of  the  inner  and  the  outer  life  alike  than  in 
these  same  terms :  "  For  where  I  go,"  He  said, 
"  ye  cannot  follow  Me  now.  Your  discipleship 
must  be  incomplete  for  a  little  while;  ye  shall 
follow  Me  afterwards."  And  Simon  Peter  said 
to  Him,  ''  Lord,  why  can  I  not  follow  Thee  now  ? 
I  am  ready  to  go  with  Thee  both  to  prison  and 
to  death."  And  even  at  the  end,  when  He 
walked  with  Simon  Peter,  in  one  of  the  last  of 
all  His  interviews  which  are  preserved  to  us  in 


76      THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

the  Gospels,  in  the  grey  dawn  of  the  early  morn- 
ing by  the  shores  of  Galilee,  as  He  welcomed  him 
back  to  the  new  life  and  the  new  service,  He 
said  to  him,  "  Follow  Me."  "  If  I  will  that  he 
tarry  till  I  come,  what  is  that  to  thee?  Follow 
thou  Me." 

That  was  Christ's  call  to  men.  He  did  not  say 
to  them,  "Will  you  join  My  organisation?" 
For  at  first  He  had  no  organisation  to  invite  men 
to  join.  He  did  not  say  to  them,  "  Will  you 
accept  these  views  that  I  am  proclaiming?"  For 
when  He  first  invited  men  to  follow  Him,  He 
had  as  yet  proclaimed  no  views.  He  asked  men 
to  join  Him.  He  did  not  ask  them  to  join  an 
institution;  He  did  not  ask  them  to  believe  in 
His  opinions;  He  asked  men  to  join  Him  and 
to  believe  in  Him.  It  was  on  the  personal  re- 
lationship to  Himself  that  He  laid  all  the  em- 
phasis; and  even  when  years  had  passed  away 
and  Christ's  organisation  had  begun  to  develop 
and  His  views  had  been  set  before  men  and  He 
called  them  into  His  life.  He  did  not  say  to 
them  even  then,  "  I  wish  you  would  accept  these 
views  of  Mine;  they  are  the  only  truths."  He 
did  not  say  to  them,  "  I  wish  you  would  join  this 
fellowship  of  Mine;  it  is  the  only  fellowship." 
He  still  said  to  them,  "Follow  Me."  At  the 
close  of  His  teaching  it  was  still  the  thought  of 
being  personally  united  to  Himself  that  He 
would  have  understood  to  be  the  fundamental 


THE    HEART'S    RESPONSE  77 

thought  of  His  kingdom.  "  I  know  My  sheep, 
and  My  sheep  know  Me,  and  they  follow  Me." 
And  when  He  set  before  His  disciples  in  the 
twelfth  chapter  of  John's  Gospel,  with  a  clear- 
ness and  a  fulness  of  intimation  which  He  had 
scarcely  used  before,  the  thought  of  His  death, 
His  crucifixion,  and  His  larger  power.  He  still 
spoke  to  them  in  these  terms.  It  was  not,  "  Be- 
lieve now  in  these  great  views  of  My  going 
away,  and  all  that  for  which  My  going  stands," 
but,  "  If  any  man  serve  Me,  let  him  follow  Me ; 
and  where  I  am,  there  also  shall  My  servant  be." 
It  is  worth  noting  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
only  person  in  the  world  who  dares  to  say  to 
men,  "  Follow  Me."  No  other  founder  of  a 
great  religion  has  based  his  religion  on  a  per- 
sonal following  of  himself.  Confucianism,  as 
a  religion,  consists  merely  in  the  practice  of 
maxims,  in  memorising  them,  and  in  the  mould- 
ing of  life  on  the  basis  of  those  ideas,  now 
twenty-five  centuries  old.  It  is  a  religion  of 
precepts  and  antiquarianism.  Buddhism  is  a 
religion  of  a  method.  Buddha  proclaimed  noth- 
ing else  than  the  discovery  of  a  way;  and  by 
his  philosophy  we  are  to  learn  simply  the  method 
of  satisfaction  and  absorption.  Mohammedan- 
ism is  the  rehgion  of  a  book  and  a  formula. 
Twelve  hundred  years  ago  Mohammed  wrote  it 
all  down,  never  to  be  changed  while  the  cen- 
turies pass,  so  that 


78       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

"Though  the  world  rolls  on  from  range  to  range. 
And  realms  of  thought  expand, 
The  letter  stands  without  expanse  or  change, 

Stiff  as  a  dead  man's  hand. 
While  as  the  life  blood  fills  the  growing  form 
The  Spirit  Christ  has  shed 
Flows  through  the  ripening  ages  quick  and  warm, 
More  felt  than  heard  or  read." 

Among  all  the  teachers  and  leaders  of  men  Jesus 
has  dared  to  stand  out  and  to  cry  over  the  tumult 
of  life's  sea,  "  Follow  Me !    Follow  Me !  " 

I  do  not  wonder  that  that  call  made  on  the 
first  disciples  the  impression  which  it  did  make. 
In  the  first  chapter  in  John's  Gospel  we  read 
that  He  was  minded  to  go  into  Galilee,  and  He 
said  to  Philip,  "  Follow  Me,"  and  Philip  found 
Nathanael,  and  without  any  other  proof  of 
Christ's  divinity  than  that  contained  in  those 
words,  "  Follow  Me,"  and  in  Christ's  person- 
ality, said  to  him,  "  We  have  found  Him,  of 
Whom  Moses  in  the  law,  and  the  prophets  did 
write,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  Son  of  Joseph." 
By  the  interpretation  of  a  phrase,  Philip  sprang 
out  of  his  dead  lovelessness  into  the  love  and 
the  life  of  Christ;  and  I  am  sure  that  no  life 
has  ever  heard  that  sweet  voice  "  that  makes 
whoever  hears  a  homesick  soul  thereafter  until  he 
follows  it  to  heaven,"  saying  "  Follow  Me,"  with- 
out seeing  back  of  that  voice  the  lovely  face  of 
the  divine  Messiah,  the  Lamb  of  God  Who  came 
to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  whole  world. 
"  Follow  Me." 


THE    HEART'S    RESPONSE  79 

But  what  does  following  Jesus  Christ  mean?*^ 
I  suppose  that  there  is  scarcely  one  of  us  who 
would  not  claim  to  be  a  follower  of  Jesus  Christ. 
But  what  does  it  mean  to  follow  Jesus  Christ? 
Well,  what  does  it  mean  to  follow  any  man?  If, 
when  Mr.  Hewitt  defeated  Mr.  Roosevelt 
and  Mr.  Henry  George  in  the  municipal  cam- 
paign for  the  mayoralty  of  New  York  City,  I 
had  said  that  I  was  a  follower  of  Henry  George, 
you  would  have  understood,  of  course,  that  I 
believed  to  an  extent  in  Mr.  George's  views; 
that  I  was  supporting  him  in.  his  candidacy  for 
the  mayoralty;  that  I  was  lending  my  influence 
to  his  election;  that  I  believed  in  his  personal 
character,  and  was  willing  to  trust  to  him  the 
large  responsibilities  of  the  office  for  which  he 
was  a  candidate.  Is  that  what  it  means  to  fol- 
low Christ?  Not  much  more  than  that,  if  Jesus 
Christ  was  only  a  man.  But  Jesus  Christ  was 
more  than  a  man,  and  to  follow  Him  means 
more  than  simply  to  believe  in  His  views,  or  to 
have  confidence  in  His  character,  or  to  be  a 
supporter  of  Jesus  for  the  position  which  He 
is  claiming  as  spiritual  King  of  all  the  children 
of  His  Father.  It  means  more  than  that  to 
follow  Christ,  for  Christ  demands  of  those  who 
follow  Him  what  no  man  ever  dared  to  demand 
of  his  followers.  He  demands  that  every  thought 
shall  be  brought  into  captivity  to  His  obedience; 
He  demands  that  all  life  shall  be  laid  down  at 
His  feet,  and  that  He  Himself  shall  be  given  the 


80       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

throne  and  sceptre  in  the  human  Hfe  that  would 
call  itself  His.  He  claims  in  the  life  of  every 
man  a  surrender  of  the  man's  whole  will,  of  all 
a  man's  nature  to  Himself,  and  He  offers,  of 
course,  in  exchange  to  give  that  which  is  of  in- 
finitely greater  value — even  the  indwelling  of 
His  own  life.  But  that  does  not  alter  the  fact 
that  He  demands  in  those  who  would  call  them- 
selves His  followers  what  no  man  ever  dared  to 
demand,  what  no  man  could  ever  expect  to  obtain 
from  his  fellowmen. 

What  does  it  mean  to  follow  Jesus  Christ?  It 
means  very  clearly  that  my  life  must  be  like 
Christ's  life,  not  by  any  mechanical  external 
imitation.  I  think  that  many  books  that  are 
written  in  our  day  with  the  most  earnest  and 
devout  purpose  make  this  great  mistake  of  lay- 
ing down  for  us  rules  of  mechanical  imitation 
of  Jesus,  which  are  themselves  the  denial  and 
the  distrust  of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus,  which  is  lib- 
erty. There  is  no  need  of  effort  in  making 
one's  Hfe  Hke  Christ's.  Christ  Himself  will  make 
the  life  like  His  which  is  willing  to  assume 
toward  Him  the  attitude  of  discipleship,  and  to 
say  to  Him,  "  Master,  I  follow  Thee,"  for  Christ 
Himself  will  put  into  operation  in  that  Hfe  the 
principles  that  make  His  own  Hfe. 

As  one  studies  the  Master's  life,  the  principles 
that  made  His  life  seem  to  fall  into  these  five 
classes.  First  of  all,  the  principles  that  found 
expression  in  what  Paul  called  Jesus's  empty- 


THE    HEART'S    RESPONSE  81 

ing  of  Himself,  what  the  Buddhists  call,  with 
reference  to  Sakya  Muni,  "the  great  renuncia- 
tion." All  that  Gautama  Buddha  gave  up  was 
his  human,  kingly  crown,  while  what  Christ  gave 
up  was  the  crown  and  throne  of  a  heavenly  king- 
dom, when  with  an  infinite  stoop  of  condescen- 
sion He  came  down  thence  to  walk  to  and  fro 
here  among  men.  Surely,  that  was  the  first 
great  principle  of  Jesus's  life.  A  life  that  would 
be  like  Christ's  must  be  imbued  with  that  same 
principle.  Jesus  Himself  taught  this.  "  If  any 
man  will  come  after  Me,  let  him  deny  himself, 
and  take  up  his  cross  daily,  and  follow  Me." 
He  pointed  out  to  His  disciples  that,  first  of 
all,  this  great  principle  must  be  put  in  opera- 
tion by  His  Spirit  in  their  lives,  which  had  ruled 
His  life,  the  principle  to  which  Paul  referred 
when,  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Philippians,  he  said :  "  Let  this  mind  be  in  you ' 
which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus;  Who  being  in 
the  form  of  God,  counted  not  equality  with 
God  a  prize  to  be  jealously  retained,  but  emptied 
Himself,  taking  the  form  of  a  servant,  being 
made  in  the  likeness  of  man  and  being  found  in 
the  fashion  as  a  man.  He  humbled  Himself  and 
became  obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of 
the  cross."  We  who  would  follow  JesMs  Christ 
must  learn,  first  of  all,  to  be  like  Him  in  this 
absolute  renunciation  of  self-life  and  self-pur- 
pose. We  must  be  willing  "  to  give  up  the  love 
of  life  for  the  sake  of  the  life  of  love." 


82       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

The  second  set  of  principles  in  Jesus's  life  are 
the  principles  of  testing  and  of  endurance  of 
testing.  When  He  began  His  ministry  He  went 
out  at  once  into  the  great  temptation  where  He 
was  tried.  For  we  have  not  a  high  priest  that 
was  not  tempted,  or  incapable  of  being  tempted, 
or  that  is  unable  to  sympathise  with  us,  but  one 
who  was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we;  and 
who  in  that  "  He  Himself  hath  suffered  being 
tempted,  is  able  to  succour  them  also  that  are 
tempted."  Is  it  not  true  that  the  better  the  life 
the  larger  its  temptations?  I  believe,  even 
though  it  is  not  a  true  view,  there  is  truth  in 
the  view  that  the  best  compliment  that  God 
can  offer  us  is  to  suffer  temptation  to  come  to 
us;  for  there  is  evil  to  be  overcome  in  this 
world,  and  that  evil  must  be  distributed  among 
those  who  are  able  to  overcome  it,  and  God 
allows  to  us  just  that  burden  which  is  within 
the  measure  of  our  strength.  If  He  allows  one 
more  or  less  than  his  brother,  it  is  because  his 
ability  to  endure  is  greater  or  less  than  his 
brother's.  The  holier  a  life  is  the  larger  its 
temptations  will  be ;  finer  temptations,  of  course, 
not  so  gross  as  the  old;  temptations  accom- 
panied with  a  larger  power  of  resistance  than 
was  possessed  before,  but  temptations  so  bitter, 
so  hot,  so  keen,  that  the  low,  coarse  life  could 
not  conceive  them  if  by  any  means  they  could 
be  expressed  to  it.  To  all  of  us  the  following 
of  Jesus,  each  step  in  the  way,  will  mean  a  life 


THE    HEART'S    RESPONSE  83 

of  larger  temptation,  and  therefore  a  life  of  finer 
fibre  and  of  larger  glory,  and  a  life  laid  under 
heavier  responsibilities  to  resist.  What  if  Jesus 
Christ  had  played  traitor  to  humanity  in  the 
wilderness  ?  What  if  He  had  fallen  when  Satan 
came  to  Him  endeavouring  to  overthrow  Him  at 
the  beginning?  All  history  since  Christ,  all  his- 
tory before  Christ,  would  have  been  written  over 
with  a  great  blur.  The  principle  of  temptation 
in  Christ's  life  was  accompanied  with  a  principle 
of  a  perfect  endurance;  and  it  must  be  so  with 
us  who  would  follow  Him. 

Then,  thirdly,  after  His  temptation,  the  Mas- 
ter came  out  at  once  from  the  wilderness,  and 
stood  forth  before  men  to  make  His  public  dec- 
laration. Imagine  yourself,  for  a  moment,  in 
that  crowd  that  stood  around  Him,  the  carpen- 
ter's son  from  the  village  of  Nazareth,  and  hear 
Him  speaking,  "  I  say  unto  you,  that  except 
your  righteousness  shall  exceed  the  righteous- 
ness of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  ye  shall  in  no 
case  enter  Into  the  kingdom  of  Heaven."  "  Not 
every  one  that  saith  unto  Me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  Heaven ;  but  he  that 
doeth  the  will  of  My  Father  which  is  in  Heaven." 
The  most  difficult  confession  you  or  I  were  ever 
called  upon  to  make  was  as  nothing  in  compar- 
ison with  the  self-declaration  which  Christ  was 
called  to  make  that  day  when  untried,  fresh 
from  His  obscure  life,  He  stepped  out  into  the 
blaze  of  the  scrutiny  of  all  Israel,  and  said  to 


84      THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

those  worshippers  of  tradition  and  of  authority: 
"  Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said  by  them  of  old 
times,  but  /  say  unto  you,  I,  I,  I."  And  so 
throughout  His  ministry.  His  preaching  was  a 
declaration  of  difficult  truth.  He  closed  His  life 
with  confessions  as  great  as  those  with  which 
He  began.  Have  you  ever  thought  why  Paul, 
in  charging  Timothy,  "  I  charge  thee  in  the 
sight  of  God,  Who  quickeneth  all  things,  and  in 
the  sight  of  Jesus  Christ,"  added,  "  Who  before 
Pontius  Pilate  witnessed  the  good  confession." 
It  was  because  Paul  understood  that  among  all 
the  great  principles  of  Christ's  life,  scarcely  any 
was  greater  than  that  principle  which  found  its 
expression  in  His  absolute  fearlessness  of  asser- 
tion of  His  message  and  His  person  and  of  the 
relationship  which  had  existed  between  Him,  the 
Son,  and  the  Father  Who  had  sent  Him.  If  we 
follow  our  Master,  we  must  be  in  our  confession 
of  Him  before  men  as  clear,  as  unqualified,  as 
strong,  as  He  was,  when,  nineteen  centuries  ago. 
He  stood  upon  the  hills  overlooking  the  tremu- 
lous blue  waves  of  Galilee  or  faced  Pontius 
Pilate. 

The  fourth  set  of  principles  that  controlled 
Christ's  life,  and  which  He  Himself  will  set  to 
control  our  lives, — ^how  can  they  be  expressed 
better  than  by  calling  them  the  principles  of 
loving  human  tenderness,  the  principles  which 
governed,  throughout,  that  career  of  gentle,  little 
Vinremembered  acts  of  kindness  and  of  love,  th^ 


THE    HEART'S    RESPONSE  85 

life  of  "  the  first  true  gentleman  that  ever 
breathed,"  that  "  very  perfect,  gentle  knight " : 

"And  of  His  port  as  meeke  as  is  a  mayde, 
He  nevere  yet  no  vileynye  he  sayde." 

Those  of  us  who  would  follow  Him  must  show 
those  principles  of  loving  tenderness  which  made 
His  life  so  sweet,  so  generous,  so  thoughtless  of 
all  self-interest,  so  thoughtful  of  all  innocence 
and  of  all  sinners,  and  let  them  govern  also  in 
our  lives  and  shape  them  after  the  fashion  of  His 
own. 

Last  of  all,  there  is  the  fifth  set  of  principles, 
which  we  must  allow  to  control  our  lives,  and 
which  are  summarised  in  the  great  names  of 
Gethsemane,  and  Calvary,  and  Olivet.  No  one 
enters  into  the  life  of  Christ's  discipleship  who 
does  not  seek,  not  the  renunciation  only,  but  the 
very  death  of  all  his  old  low  self  and  self-life. 
For  life  is  far  more  than  just  ease  and  gentle- 
ness, far  more  than  confession  and  the  endur- 
ance of  the  tests  that  God  sends  us.  Life  is  a 
daily  dying  and  rising — as  the  old  lines  run: 

'*  As  once  toward  heaven  my  face  was  set, 
I  came  unto  a  place  where  two  ways  met. 
One  led  to  Paradise  and  one  away; 
And  fearful  of  myself  lest  I  should  stray, 

I  paused  that  I  might  know 
Which  was  the  way  wherein  I  ought  to  go. 
The  first  was  one  my  weary  eyes  to  please. 
Winding  along  thro'  pleasant  fields  of  ease, 


86       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

Beneath  the  shadow  of  fair  branching  trees. 
*This  path  of  calm  and  solitude 

Surely  must  lead  to  heaven,'  I  cried, 
In  joyous  mood. 
*Yon  rugged  one,  so  rough  for  weary  feet, 

The  footpath  of  the  world's  too  busy  street. 

Can  never  be  the  narrow  way  of  life.' 

But  at  that  moment  I  thereon  espied 

A  footprint  bearing  trace  of  having  bled, 

And  knew  it  for  the  Christ's,  so  bowed  my  head. 
And  followed  where  He  led." 

In  the  life  of  each  one  of  us  truly  follov^ing 
Jesus,  these  principles  that  make  Christ's  life 
and  Christ  Himself  Hving  in  these  principles, 
must  be  operating. 

Is  that  all  that  following  Jesus  means  ?  From 
one  point  of  view,  yes ;  and  yet  there  is  one  ele- 
ment which  has  not  had  emphasis  enough.  Fol- 
lowing Jesus  means  that  I  turn  over  to  Jesus 
all  my  judgments,  all  my  tastes,  all  my  opinions, 
all  my  few  talents  for  His  use;  that  I  sink  in 
Him  all  my  interests ;  that  in  the  fine  old  phrase 
of  Ignatius,  He  becomes  to  me  "  my  inseparable 
life,"  and  I  have  no  longer  any  life  "  divided,  O 
Lord  of  Life,  from  Thee,"  All  my  life  becomes 
Christ's  when  I  have  once  said  to  Him,  as  I 
have  heard  His  voice  say,  "  Follow  me,"  "  Mas- 
ter, I  follow  thee." 

Following  Christ  means,  of  course,  also,  the 
complement  of  this.     As  I  hand  over  to  Christ  \ 
all  that  I  am  and  all  that  I  have,  Christ  hands  i 
back  to  me  all  that  He  is  and  all  that  He  has. 


THE    HEART'S    RESPONSE  87 

I  say  it  very  reverently.  Our  Master  says  to  us 
"Ye  are  My  Master;"  just  as  truly  as  we  say 
to  Him,  "Thou  art  My  Master;"  for  He  has 
put  at  my  disposal  all  that  is  His,  even  as  I  have 
tried  to  put  at  His  disposal  all  that  is  mine. 
Nothing  that  He  possesses  is  held  back  from  me. 
All  those  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge 
that  are  hidden  in  Him  are  made  mine.  He 
Himself  is  made  to  me  the  unlimited  horizon 
of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  Jesus  Christ 
gives  far  more  than  He  asks  from  any  of  those 
whom  He  asks  to  follow  Him.  Years  ago,  one 
who  was  at  that  time  perhaps  the  best  known 
astronomer  of  our  country,  in  an  address  which 
he  made  at  Smith  College  when  he  was  speaking 
there  one  Sunday  afternoon,  quoted  a  hymn 
which  he  said  was  his  favourite  hymn.  I  have 
thought  of  it  often  as  coming  from  him,  a  man 
who  had  seen  more  things  than  any  of  us  can 
hope  to  see.  This  was  the  hymn  he  said  he 
loved  best  of  all : 

"Jesus,  these  eyes  have  never  seen 

That  radiant  form  of  thine. 
The  veil  of  sense  hangs  dark  between 

Thy  blessed  face  and  mine. 
I  hear  Thee  not,  I  see  Thee  not, 

Yet  art  Thou  oft  with  me; 
And  earth  hath  ne'er  so  dear  a  spot 

As  where  I   meet  with  Thee." 

Only  the  old  hymn  errs  in  this :  that  Christ  is  not 
"oft"   with   those  that   follow   Him.     "If  any 


88       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

man  serve  Me,  let  him  follow  Me;  and  where 
I  am,  there  also  shall  My  servant  be."  It  is 
one  of  the  laws  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  that 
Christ  and  His  servant,  His  follower,  can  never 
be  apart.  Though  I  go  down  into  the  uttermost 
depths  of  the  earth,  even  there  will  His  love 
protect  me.  Though  I  wander  off  out  of  the 
sight  of  all  men.  His  love  is  with  me  still. 

"I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 
Their  fronded  palms  in  air, 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care." 

Into  the  secret  of  His  presence  we  go  morning 
and  night.  In  the  secret  place  not  "  oft "  but  al- 
ways is  the  soul  that  is  following  Jesus  privi- 
leged to  live  and  to  walk,  to  wake  and  to  sleep, 
in  Him.  These  things  it  means  to  follow  Christ. 
But  even  more.  "  Come  ye  after  me,"  was 
His  word  to  those  disciples  on  the  shores  of 
Galilee,  and  what  ?  "  Come  ye  after  me,  and  I 
will  make  you  to  be  fishers  of  men."  In  other 
words,  "  Follow  me,  and  others  will  follow  you." 
Following  Jesus  Christ  is  the  door  to  the  influ- 
ence we  covet.  I  suppose  that  all  of  us  covet 
influence.  There  is  nothing  for  which  men 
hunger  so  as  they  hunger  for  influence  over 
their  fellow  men.  Until  the  new  era  dawned, 
2,000,000  men  came  up  to  take  the  annual  ex- 
aminations in  the  civil  service  in  China  every 
year.     Men  took  these  examinations  year  after 


THE    HEAHT'S    RESPONSE  8^ 

year  for  seventy  years.  There  were  instances 
of  old  men  over  a  hundred  years  of  age  still  try- 
ing to  pass  the  entrance  examinations  of  what 
was  practically  the  great  university  of  China, 
so  hot  was  their  ambition  after  those  positions 
of  influence  and  leadership  which  could  be  ob- 
tained in  no  other  way.  Scarcely  a  year  passes 
in  India  that  some  of  the  young  Hindus  who  fail 
in  the  examination  do  not  commit  suicide,  so  dis- 
appointed are  they  at  having  lost  the  chance  of 
rising  into  the  positions  of  influence  that  they 
desire.  Few  of  us  probably  want  anything  more 
than  we  want  the  ability  to  influence  men  and 
women  to  follow  Jesus.  We  do  not  long  for  a 
crown  of  glory.  We  do  long  for  the  fulfilment 
in  our  lives  of  that  old  promise  in  Daniel,  that 
they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  shall  shine 
as  the  stars  forever  and  ever.  We  would  like 
to  feel  as  Paul  felt,  who  was  willing  to  be  ac- 
cursed from  God  for  his  brothers'  sake  if  only  he 
might  turn  them  to  the  light  and  joy  of  Christ. 
We  want  to  feel,  as  he  felt,  the  thrilling  eagef' 
ness  and  joy  of  influence. 

"Oft  when  the  Word  is  on  me  to  deliver. 
Lifts  the  illusion  and  the  truth  lies  bare. 
Desert  or  throng,  the  city  or  the  river. 

Melts  in  a  lucid  Paradise  of  air. 
Only  like  souls  I  see  the  folk  thereunder 
Bound  who  should  conquer,  slaves  who  should  bf 
kings. 
Hearing  their  one  hope  with  an  empty  wonder. 
Sadly  contented  in  a  show  of  things. 


90       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

Then  with  a  rush  the  intolerable  craving 
Shivers  throughout  me  like  a  trumpet  call, 

Oh,  to  save  these,  to  perish  for  their  saving, 
Die  for  their  life,  be  offered  for  them  all." 

And  here  is  the  secret :  "  Follow  me."  "  Come 
ye  after  me,  and  I  will  make  you  to  become 
fishers  of  men." 

Nor  is  even  that  all.  "  He  that  foUoweth  me 
shall  not  walk  in  darkness,  but  shall  have  the 
light  of  life."  I  do  not  know  the  way  I  go; 
you  do  not  know  the  way  you  go.  Now  and 
then  we  become  conscious  that  the  way  is  dark, 
and  we  are  far  from  home,  and  we  cry  for  the 
kindly  Light  to  lead  us  on.  "  He  that  follow- 
eth  Me  shall  not  walk  in  darkness,  but  shall 
have  the  light  of  life  " ;  He  Himself  stands  wait- 
ing by  the  side  of  those  who  are  waiting  with 
willingness  to  follow  Him,  ready  to  lead  us  on. 

"  And  although  the  way  be  cheerless. 
We  can  follow  calm  and  fearless. 
Till  we  safely  stand  in  the  Fatherland." 

Nor  is  that  all.  "  If  any  man  serve  me,  let 
him  follow  Me;  and  he  that  followeth  Me,  him 
shall  My  Father  honour."  He  is  calling  us  to- 
day, as  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  He  called 
over  the  waves  of  Galilee,  saying,  "  Christian, 
follow  me."  Shall  we  let  Him  pass  by,  with  the 
gleam  of  His  white  robe  dying  out  of  our  sight, 
and  the  sweet  voice  growing  fainter  and  fainter 
in  our  ears,  and  the  radiance  that  always  goes 


THE    HEART'S    RESPONSE  91 

with  Him  sinking  out  of  our  sky;  shall  we  let 
Him  pass  ?  Or,  as  He  cried,  "  Follow  me,"  shall 
we  turn  to  Him,  knowing  well  what  It  means, 
and  rising  up,  leave  all  and  follow  Him  ? 

This  is  the  whole  of  it.  He,  Himself,  stands 
waiting,  with  all  of  the  Father's  life  and  the 
Father's  joy  and  the  Father's  fulness,  and  the 
Father's  glory,  ready  to  give  them  to  us  if  we 
will  follow  Him,  and  there  is  nowhere  else  that 
they  can  be  found. 


"Long  did  I  toil  and  knew  no  earthly  rest. 

Far  did  I  roam  and  found  no  lasting  home. 
At  last  I  sought  them  in  His  sheltering  breast 

Who  opes  His  arms  and  bids  the  weary  come. 
With  Him  I  found  a  home,  a  rest  divine; 
And  I  since  then   am  His,  and  He  is  mine. 

"  The  good  I  have  Is  from  his  store  supplied, 
The  ill  is  only  what  He  deems  the  best. 
He  for  my  friend,  I'm  rich  with  naught  beside. 

And  poor  without  Him,  though  of  all  possessed. 
All  things  may  change;  I  take  or  I  resign, 
Content  while  I  am  His  and  He  is  mine. 

"Whate'er  may  change,  no  change  in  Him  is  seen; 

A  glorious  sun  that  wanes  not  nor  declines. 
Above  the  clouds  and  doubts  He  walks  serene, 

And  sweetly  on  His  people's  darkness  shines. 
Whate'er  may  come,  I  care  not  nor  repine 
While  I  my  Saviour's  am,  and  He  is  mine. 

"While  here,  alas!  I  know  but  half  His  love. 
But  half  discern  Him  and  but  half  adore: 


92       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

But  when  I  meet  Him  in  the  courts  above, 

I  hope  to  love  Him  better,  praise  Him  more, 
And  sing  and  tell  amid  the  choir  divine 
How  fully  I  am  His  and  He  is  mine." 

Let  us  go  with  Him  and  be  His,  that  He  may 
go  with  us  and  be  ours. 


THE   INNER   CIRCLE 

AMONG  the  multitude  who  followed  Jesus, 
^\^  attracted  by  the  novelty  of  His  doctrine  and 
the  magic  of  His  mighty  works,  there  were 
a  few  who  heard  in  His  doctrine  the  voice  of  the 
Father  and  who  perceived  that  the  mighty  works 
were  signs.  How  many  men  and  women  of  sin- 
cere and  discerning  faith  were  hidden  in  the 
multitude  we  can  not  say.  We  know  that  there 
were  some  hundreds  of  them.  From  among 
these  Jesus  selected  seventy,  and  sent  them  out 
two  by  two  before  His  face  into  every  city  and 
place  whither  He  Himself  would  come.  Besides 
these  seventy  He  chose  twelve,  not  to  go  out 
from  Him,  but  to  be  with  Him,  to  learn  His 
ways  and  to  acquire  His  spirit.  And  within 
this  circle  He  had  another  circle  of  three — 
sometimes  of  four — who  were  closer  to  Him  still. 
Who  the  men  were  who  composed  this  inner 
circle  we  know.  They  were  the  first  four  dis- 
ciples whom  He  had  won — ^John  and  James  and 
Simon  Peter  and  Andrew  his  brother.  Apart 
from  the  story  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Gospel 
of  John,  which  tells  us  so  ingenuously  of  how 
these  four  men  became  the  disciples  of  Jesus, 
we  see  on  three  different  occasions  three  of  them 

93 


94       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

living  in  the  closest  relations  with  Him,  and 
on  one  other  occasion  all  four  close  by  His  side. 
Peter  and  James  and  John  were  the  only  three 
whom  He  would  suffer  to  go  with  Him  when 
He  went  into  the  room  and  restored  the  little 
daughter  of  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue.  We 
read  later  that  when  He  would  be  transfigured 
He  took  Peter  and  James  and  John  and  went 
up  into  an  high  mountain  apart  and  was  glori- 
fied before  them.  Later,  as  the  end  drew  near, 
He  sat  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  over  against 
the  temple ;  and  there  were  with  Him  Peter  and . 
James  and  John  and  Andrew.  And  last  of  all, 
when  He  went  down  into  the  Garden  of  Geth- 
semane,  there  were  three  whom  He  took  along  to 
watch  with  Him — Peter  and  James  and  John. 
As  last  in  the  old  life  so  first  in  the  new  He  drew 
these  men  close  to  Him.  To  two  of  them  He 
appeared  on  Easter  Day  and  then  to  all  three 
and  perhaps  to  Andrew  also  on  the  shore  of  the 
old  sea  where  He  had  first  called  them  to  come 
after  Him. 

What  these  men  who  made  up  the  inner  circle 
daily  saw  and  heard  in  their  intimate  relations 
with  Christ  we  may  somewhat  guess  from  what 
we  know  that  they  saw  and  heard  on  these  occa- 
sions when  we  see  them  with  Him.  They  saw  as 
no  other  men  the  tenderness  of  Jesus;  they  saw 
as  no  other  men  the  glory  of  Jesus ;  they  saw  as 
no  other  men  the  calm  dignity  and  prophetic 
discernment   of  Jesus,   and   they  saw   as   none 


THE    INNER    CIRCLE  95 

others  the  exquisite  suffering  and  sympathy  of 
Jesus.  It  is  impossible  that  our  hearts  should 
not  long  to  have  seen  what  they  saw.  We  also 
pray : 

"  Oh    to    have    watched    Thee    through    the    vineyards 
wander, 
Pluck  the  ripe  ears  and  into  evening  roam ! — 
Followed,  and  known  that  in  the  twilight  yonder 
Legions  of  angels  shone  about  Thy  home." 

But  could  we  have  seen  if  we  had  been  there? 
.AH  the  disciples  were  not  in  this  inner  circle. 
How  did  Jesus  come  to  have  an  inner  circle 
among  His  inmost  friends?  Was  His  choice 
of  these  three  men  a  matter  of  partiality  and  of 
divine  selection,  or  might  any  disciple  who  de- 
sired have  belonged  to  this  inner  company  if 
he  had  been  willing  to  live  as  close  to  Jesus 
as  these?  Whatever  limitations  were  imposed 
upon  our  Lord's  selection  of  His  friends  by  the 
conditions  of  His  earthly  life,  however  narrow 
the  possibilities  of  membership  in  this  inner 
circle  may  have  been  when  Christ  was  here,  we 
have  His  own  word  for  it  that  now  any  man 
who  will  may  belong  to  the  inmost  company  of 
His  friends.  He  Himself  said  to  the  woman 
by  Jacob's  well  that  the  day  was  coming — yes, 
was  now  come — when  those  who  worship  the 
Father  will  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth, 
for  the  Father  is  seeking  such  to  worship  Him; 
and  in  ways  that  seemed  almost  to  exhaust  His 
own  divine  powers  of  appeal  our  Lord  spoke  to 


96       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

those  about  Him,  and  left  to  His  disciples  of  all 
days  the  most  winning  invitations  to  come  and 
join  the  most  secret  company  of  His  own.  He 
speaks  still  as  He  spoke  of  old  in  His  pathetic  ex- 
postulation to  the  Jews :  "  Come  unto  me.  Ye 
search  the  Scriptures,  because  ye  think  in  them  ye  i 
have  eternal  life ;  and  they  are  they  which  testify 
of  me.  And  ye  will  not  come  to  me,  that  ye 
might  have  life."  We  read  that  as  He  came 
around  over  the  brow  of  the  Mount  of  Olives  for 
one  of  His  last  visits  to  Jerusalem,  and  emerged 
from  the  shadow  of  the  rock  which,  as  Dean 
Stanley  says,  hides  the  city  completely  from  the 
sight  of  the  traveller  imtil  it  bursts  all  at  once 
upon  his  view,  He  wept  over  it,  and  He  said,  "  If  \ 
thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  the  things  that  be-  ) 
long  unto  thy  peace ;  but  now  they  are  hid  from  / 
thine  eyes."  From  beside  that  rock  on  Olivet  we 
may  still  hear  the  invitations  of  His  love.  And 
we  read  even  in  that  stern  chapter,  the  twenty- 
third  chapter  of  Matthew,  in  which.  He  de- 
nounces so  unhesitatingly  and  with  so  little  com- 
promise the  hypocrisy  and  the  blindness  of  the 
Pharisees,  that  He  could  not  even  then  restrain 
the  desire  to  invite  men  into  the  closest  possible 
relationship  with  Him;  and  He  broke  out  at  the 
end  of  that  chapter  with  the  appealing  cry,  "O 
Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  how  often  would  I  have 
gathered  thy  children  together  as  a  hen  gathers 
her  little  ones  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would 
not !  "    For  a  surety  the  picture  that  John  Bun- 


THE    INNER    CIRCLE  97 

yan  draws  of  the  man  at  the  gate,  of  which 
Barbara  MacAndrew  makes  use  in  her  poem,  is 
wholly  justified  by  Jesus's  own  words. 

"  Thus  day  and  night  they  are  drawing  nigh 
With  tears  and  sighs  to  the  heavenly  gate. 
Where  the  Watchman  stands  in  His  majesty, 
With  a  patience  that  never  has  said,  *  Too  late  I ' 

"  Let  the  sorrowful  children  of  want  and  sin 
Draw  near  to  the  gate  whence  none  depart. 
Let  the  nations  arise  and  enter  in, 

For  the  Lord  is  willing  with  all  His  heart." 

But  we  may  say  in  our  hearts,  as  we  recall 
in  this  way  the  Saviour's  eager  invitation  to  us 
to  be  among  His  best  friends,  that  our  tempera- 
ments preclude  the  possibility  of  our  ever  becom- 
ing members  of  the  inner  circle.  But  the  con- 
stitution of  the  first  inner  circle  is  proof  of  the 
capacity  of  every  man  to  belong.  A  man  may 
say:  "I  am  incapable  by  my  disposition  of  be- 
longing to  the  inner  circle  at  all.  I  am  vacillat- 
ing, unreliable,  impulsive,  hasty  in  my  spiritual 
judgments.  There  are  hours  when  I  could  be- 
long, but  there  are  other  hours  when  I  am  far 
away,  and  I  would  be  but  a  hypocrite  if  I  pre- 
tended now  that  I  could  join  and  remain  faithful 
to  that  sacred  company.  I  have  always  been  in- 
constant and  unreliable  and  changeable  and  full 
of  moods,  and  the  inner  circle  is  not  for  me." 
But  Simon  Peter  was  this  sort  of  a  man,  and  he 


98       THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

belonged.  Another  may  say :  ''  I  am  by  nature 
cool  and  undemonstrative ;  my  mind  is  not  spirit- 
ual— it  is  mathematical.  I  am  all  the  time  cal- 
culating; I  am  frugal  of  my  emotions.  Much 
that  is  said  in  religious  meetings  makes  no  appeal 
to  me.  It  does  not  touch  me.  If  I  were  a  man 
of  delicate  spiritual  sensibilities,  as  others  whom 
I  know,  I  could  join."  But  Andrew  was  just 
such  a  man,  and  he  belonged.  Or  one  may  say : 
"  I  am  hard  in  my  judgments  of  others.  I  am 
prone  to  severity.  I  am  not  of  that  generous 
and  charitable  temperament  which  disposes  men 
to  free  spiritual  fellowship.  I  have  my  opinions, 
and  everything  has  to  bend  to  them.  I  cannot 
let  myself  go.  I  am  of  a  different  sort  from 
the  demonstrative  men  who  belong  in  the  inner 
circle."  But  James  was  such  a  man,  and  he  be- 
longed. And  as  for  all  the  men  of  love,  John 
was  a  member  of  this  early  inner  circle,  and 
represents  the  right  of  every  man  whose  heart 
is  tender  toward  Jesus — who,  however  weary  he 
may  be  of  his  own  weakness  and  stern  tovv^ard 
himself,  is  all  gentleness  and  love  toward  his 
Lord  Jesus,  to  come  and  abide  with  Him.  For 
such  men  John  is  the  sufficient  evidence  that  they 
belong  in  the  inner  circle  of  the  Saviour. 

But  how  may  men  enter  this  circle,  if  it  is 
not  a  matter  of  election  or  of  partiality,  but  is 
open  to  every  Christian  man?  How  did  these 
first  disciples  enter?  In  the  first  place,  they 
esteemed  membership   in  the  inner  circle   as  a 


THE    INNER    CIRCLE  99 

desirable  thing — they  wanted  to  belong;  and  as 
Simon  Peter  said,  far  on  in  his  life,  they  were 
willing  to  sacrifice  everything  else  for  the  sake 
of  belonging,'  "  Lord,"  he  said,  "  we  have  left 
all  that  we  might  be  close  to  Thee."  If  there 
be  some  of  us  who  are  not  desirous  of  belonging, 
we  cannot  get  in.  If  there  are  other  things 
that  we  esteem  as  more  to  be  desired  than  mem- 
bership in  the  inner  circle  of  Christ's  friends, 
we  cannot  enter.  If  we  are  esteeming  some  per- 
sonal vice,  if  we  are  counting  some  personal  am- 
bition, if  we  are  holding  this  or  that  taste  as  a 
more  valuable  thing  than  membership  in  the 
inner  circle  of  Christ's  friends,  we  cannot  be 
admitted  there.  But  we  can  go  in,  just  as  these 
first  disciples  went  in,  if  we  want  to  go — if  we 
count  membership  in  the  circle  of  Christ's  closest 
friends  a  worthy  and  noble  thing,  and  if,  count- 
ing it  so,  we  are  willing  to  walk  in  the  footsteps 
of  those  first  disciples  who,  when  they  heard  His 
voice,  rose  up  and  left  all  and  came  in. 

In  the  second  place,  they  followed  Him.  It 
was  doubtless  hard  work  climbing  the  Mountain 
of  Transfiguration;  but  it  was  enough  for  them 
that  His  figure  went  before.  We  know  that  it 
was  hard  work  for  them  to  go  into  the  Garden 
of  Gethsemane  with  Him.  They  were  so 
wearied  that  they  could  not  watch  with  Him, 
and  fell  asleep ;  but  still  they  followed  Him.  And 
if  one  voice  could  speak  to  us  again  that  is 
silent  nowj  but  is  speaking  in  the  courts  of  that 


100     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

upper  City,  I  think  that  voice  would  tell  us  again 
the  story  of  the  resolute  and  persistent  following 
of  Elisha  upon  the  footsteps  of  his  master.  The 
true  disciple  will  not  be  turned  aside  from  fol- 
lowing his  Master.  These  men  followed  Jesus, 
and  therefore  they  must  be  with  Him.  When 
He  went  to  see  His  Father  face  to  face  on  the 
Mount  of  Transfiguration  they  were  with  Him 
there.  When  He  sat  on  the  hill  over  against 
the  temple  and  thought  on  the  boundless  years 
that  were  to  roll  before  He  came  back  again 
they  were  with  Him  there.  And  when  He  went 
down  into  the  garden  among  the  little  olive 
trees  that  were  kind  to  Him,  to  fight  out  there 
the  last  battle  of  all,  they  were  with  Him  still, 
and  saw  glistening  upon  His  brow  the  sweat- 
drops  of  blood.  If  men  will  follow  Him  He 
will  not  flee  from  them,  and  they  will  find  them- 
selves through  the  sheer  force  of  their  follow- 
ing in  the  circle  of  His  inmost  friends.  These 
first  three  not  only  wanted  to  be  with  Jesus 
and  to  follow  Jesus — ^they  2i\so_  wot. chedjmih 
Him.  Though  their  eyes  were  heavy  with 
slumber,  they  still  would  try  to  watch  with  Him 
— and  while  they  watched  they  beheld.  So  far 
as  they  would  not  let  their  Master  slip  from 
them,  they  perforce  lived  within  the  circle  of  His 
closest  companionship.  And  wherever,  still  fol- 
lowing in  the  steps  of  these  first  who  made  up 
the  inmost  circle  of  His  dear  ones,  men  are 
eager  for  Christ's   deepest  companionship,  will 


THE    INNER    CIRCLE  101 

follow  Him  whatever  must  be  left  that  they  may 
follow,  and  will  watch  with  keen  and  undimmed 
eyes  His  footsteps,  they  will  find  themselves,  as 
Peter  and  James  and  John  did  nineteen  hundred 
years  ago,  in  the  inner  circle  of  the  Lord. 

"If  I  ask  Him  to  receive  me 

Will  He  say  me  nay? 
*Not  till  earth  and  not  till  Heaven 
Pass  away. 

"Finding,   following,  keeping,   struggling. 
Is  He  sure  to  bless? 
Angels,  Martyrs,  Prophets,  Virgins 
Answer,  *  Yes.' " 

But  there  are  some  things  that  will  keep  men 
out  of  the  inner  circle  of  Christ.  One  of  them 
is  ^ayerlessness.  When  we  pray  that  we  may 
be  brought  and  kept  within  the  spirit  of  the 
prayerful  life  we  ask  that  He  Who  alone  can  do  it 
should  enable  each  one  of  us  to  comply  with  one 
condition  of  membership  in  the  inmost  circle  of 
the  Saviour's  friends.  The  prayerless  life  is 
shut  out  of  the  closest  companionship  of  Christ. 
I  imagine  that  many  of  us  would  be  ashamed  to 
answer  if  anyone  should  ask  and  each  one  of  us 
should  be  obliged  candidly  to  reply  whether  we 
have  the  habit  of  personal  daily  secret  prayer. 
I  was  reading  recently  some  extracts  from  the 
diary  and  letters  of  old  Andrew  Bonar  that  may 
persuade  our  hearts  to  a  greater  desire  to  rise 


102     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

beyond  that  prayerlessness  of  life  which  bare 
the  gates  of  the  inner  circle  against  men: 

"  God  has  this  week  been  impressing  much 
upon  me  the  way  of  redeeming  time  for  prayer 
by  learning  to  pray  while  walking  from  place 
to  place." 

"  God  will  not  let  me  get  the  blessing  without 
asking.  Until  I  get  up  to  the  measure  of  at 
least  two  hours  in  pure  prayer  every  day  I  shall 
not  be  contented." 

"  My  chief  desire  should  be  to  be  a  man  of 
prayer,  for  there  is  no  want  of  speaking,  and 
writing,  and  preaching,  and  teaching,  and  work- 
ing ;  but  there  is  need  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  make 
all  this  effectual." 

"  Pray  for  my  new  charge,  for  we  have  no 
more  than  a  few  drops  yet,  and  I  believe  I  am 
to  blame.     I  work  more  than  I  pray." 

"  Fully  convinced  that  the  best  thing  that  I 
can  do  in  my  study  and  mode  of  conducting 
work  will  be  to  give  more  time  to  prayer,  and 
always  to  give  it  the  earliest  place  in  my  em- 
ployments." 

"  In  prayer  in  the  wood  for  some  time,  having 
set  apart  three  hours  for  devotion ;  felt  drawn 
out  much  to  pray  for  that  peculiar  fragrance 
which  believers  have  about  them  who  are  very 
much  in  fellowship  with  God." 

"  I  must  at  once  return,  through  the  Lord's 
strength,  to  not  less  than  three  hours  a  day 
spent  in  prayer  and  meditation  upon  the  Word„" 


THE    INNER    CIRCLE  103 

"  I  got  away  alone  in  the  forenoon  to  the 
hills,  and  spent  five  hours  in  meditation  and 
prayer." 

At  the  age  of  sixty-six  he  writes,  "  The  Lord 
is  teaching  me  more  prayerfulness " ;  and  he 
recalls  a  new  lesson  "  in  regard  to  the  helpful- 
ness of  trying  to  pray  every  hour  of  the  day, 
though  only  for  half  a  minute." 

Do  we  pray  with  any  such  spirit  of  prayer  as 
this  ?  Our  own  hearts  tell  us  that  we  lose  much 
of  the  sweetness  of  the  inner  circle  of  Christ's 
friends  which  can  be  given  only  to  those  who 
have  learned  in  the  life  of  unceasing  prayer  to 
be  receiving  it  from  Him.  Prayerlessness  will 
shut  men  out  of  the  inner  circle. 

Carelessness  will  shut  men  out.  Many  of  us, 
perhaps,  have  thus  far  had  no  very  high  and 
strenuous  spiritual  purpose.  It  is  possible  for 
men  to  lose  the  joy  of  the  inner  circle  of  Christ's 
closest  friends  because  they  have  no  care  to  be- 
long to  that  circle  nor  any  care  to  meet  the  con- 
ditions of  entrance  thither.  I  think  often  of 
that  verse  in  our  Lord's  utterance  after  the  feed- 
ing of  the  five  thousand,  when  He  turned  to  the 
multitude  who  had  struggled  so  hard  to  find 
Him,  some  rowing  across  the  lake  and  some 
coming  around  until  they  met  Him  on  the  other 
side.  ''  Work,  my  friends,"  He  said,  not  intend- 
ing to  dissuade  them  from  doing  things  or  from 
drawing  the  tension  of  their  life  tight — ''  work, 
my  friends;  only  work  not  for  the  meat  that 


104     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

perisheth,  but  for  the  meat  that  endureth  to  ever- 
lasting life,  which  the  Son  of  Man  shall  give  to 
you."  The  emphasis  of  our  Lord's  declaration 
falls  upon  that  one  word  "  work."  He  intends 
men  to  labour,  to  agonise — that  with  all  the  rest 
and  peace  and  placid  surrender  of  the  Christian 
life  they  should  string  themselves  high  also  for 
that  spiritual  effort  without  which  prayer  is 
impossible  and  valueless,  and  without  which 
there  cannot  be  any  high  and  holy  fellowship 
with  God  at  all.  As  Frederick  Myers  writes 
in  "St  Paul": 

"Let  no  man  think  that  sudden,  in  a  minute, 
All  is  accomplished,  and  the  work  is  done. 
Though  with  thine  earliest  dawn  thou  shouldst  begin  it, 
Scarce  were  it  ended  in  thy  setting  sun. 

"  Oh,  the  regret,  the  struggle  and  the  failing ! 
Oh,  the  days  desolate  and  useless  years. 
Vows  of  the  night,  so  fierce  and  unavailing, 
Stings  of  my  shame  and  passion  of  my  tears  I " 

We  pay  for  spiritual  possessions  with  pain. 
Then  and  only  then  they  come  deep  and  abound- 
ing, the  vast  experience  of  God  in  Christ. 

Another  thing  that  will  bar  the  gates  of  that 
inner  fellowship  is  uncleanness.  Our  Lord  will 
not  entrust  the  pure  chalice  of  His  communi- 
cated life  to  uncleansed  hands.  Impurity  of  life 
will  disqualify  men  for  association  with  that 
white  and  stainless  Christ  Whose  eyes  are  too 


THE    INNER    CIRCLE  105 

pure  to  look  upon  iniquity — who,  though  He  was 
tempted  in  all  points  as  we  are,  yet  is  without  sin, 
and  cannot  admit  to  the  secret  places  of  His 
own  pure  heart  one  who  tries  to  take  in  with 
him  any  tainted  way.  Into  that  inner  secret  of 
Christ's  fellowship  the  man  who  would  go  must 
go  leaving  behind  him  at  the  gate  his  sin  and, 
defilement.  "  Forasmuch,"  says  John  Bunyan, 
''  as  the  passage  was  wonderful  narrow,  even 
so  narrow  that  I  could  not  but  with  great  diffi- 
culty enter  in  thereat,  it  showed  me  that  none 
could  enter  into  life  but  those  that  were  in  down- 
right earnest  and  when  also  they  left  this  wicked 
world  behind  them;  for  here  was  only  room  for 
body  and  soul,  but  not  for  body  and  soul  and 
sin."  Into  that  hidden  place  where  Jesus  Christ 
sits  quiet  forever  with  the  circle  of  His  dearest 
friends,  only  those  men  can  go  who  are  willing 
to  go  with  clean  hands  and  pure  hearts.  Into 
that  great  city  which  lies  beyond,  whose  gates 
are  pure  jewels  and  whose  streets  are  of  pure 
gold,  and  out  from  under  the  throne  in  the 
midst  of  which  there  flows  a  river  of  water  as 
pure  as  crystal,  there  is  to  be  admitted  nothing 
that  worketh  uncleanness  or  abomination  or 
any  defilement;  and  into  the  inner  circle  of 
Christ's  friends  here,  no  more  than  there,  can 
that  man  come  who  cannot  come  with  hands 
washed  clean  in  the  blood  of  Christ,  a  mind 
stripped  of  foul  imagery  and  a  heart  desiring  to 
be  pure  of  all  polluting  things.     As — 


106     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

"  Beyond  our  sight  a  city  four-square  lieth, 

Above  the  clouds  and  fogs  and  mists  of  earth; 
And  none  but  souls  that  Jesus  purifieth 
Can  taste  its  joys  or  hear  its  holy  mirth," 

SO  there  is  opened  before  us  here  a  secret  fellow- 
ship with  Christ  made  up  of  hearts  ready  in 
Him  to  be  kept  purified. 

Is  that  which  is  found  in  the  inner  circle 
worth  the  cost  ?  In  that  inner  circle  with  Christ 
is  the  sight  of  the  Father's  face.  None  of  the 
other  Apostles  saw  the  Father's  glory  as  those 
saw  it  who  that  night  went  up  with  Jesus  on  the 
Mount  of  Transfiguration  and  saw  His  raiment 
made  all  white  and  glistening — whiter  than  any 
fuller  on  earth  could  whiten  it;  who  saw  the 
glory  of  God  come  down  and  rest  upon  Him,  and 
who  heard  the  Father's  voice  speak  out  of  the 
clouds,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I 
am  well  pleased." 

Our  Lord  waits  still  to  give  new  deep  reveal- 
ings :  "  I  have  had  some  delightful  times  and 
passages  since  I  came  here,  such  as  I  never  had 
before,"  wrote  Horace  Bushnell  while  away 
from  home  seeking  health  and  finding  God  more 
deeply  than  ever  before.  "  I  never  so  saw  God, 
never  had  Him  come  so  broadly,  clearly  out. 
He  has  not  spoken  to  me,  but  He  has  done 
what  is  more.  There  has  been  nothing  debat- 
able to  speak  of,  but  an  infinite  easiness  and 
universal  presentation  to  thought,  as  it  were  by 
revelation.     Nothing  ever  seemed  so  wholly  in- 


THE    INNER    CIRCLE  107 

viting  and  so  profoundly  supreme  to  the  mind. 
Had  there  been  a  strain  for  it,  then  it  could  not 
be.  Oh,  my  God!  what  a  fact  to  possess  and 
know  that  He  is !  I  have  not  seemed  to  compare 
Him  with  anything,  and  set  Him  in  a  higher 
value;  but  He  has  been  the  all,  and  the  alto- 
gether, everywhere,  lovely.  There  is  nothing 
else  to  compete;  there  is  nothing  else,  in  fact. 
It  has  been  as  if  all  the  revelations,  through  good 
men,  nature,  Christ,  had  been  now  through,  and 
their  cargo  unloaded,  the  capital  meaning  pro- 
duced, and  the  God  set  forth  in  His  proper  day, 
— the  good,  the  true,  the  perfect,  the  all-holy  and 
benignant.  The  question  has  not  been  whether 
I  could  somehow  get  nearer, — nearer  my  God, 
to  Thee ;  but  as  if  He  had  come  out  Himself  just 
near  enough,  and  left  me  nothing  but  to  stand 
still  and  see  the  salvation ;  no  excitement,  no 
stress,  but  an  amazing  beatific  tranquillity.  I 
never  thought  I  could  possess  God  so  completely. 
What  is  to  come  of  it?  Something  good  and 
glorious,  I  hope." 

If  any  of  you  are  hungry  for  a  more  living 
touch  with  God,  I  speak  to  you  of  a  place  where 
hunger  can  be  satisfied.  Someone  is  said  to 
have  asked  Lord  Tennyson  what  was  the  great- 
est desire  of  his  heart,  and  to  have  got  the  answer 
in  reply  that  the  greatest  desire  he  had  ever  had 
was  to  have  a  "  clearer  vision  of  God."  Who 
does  not  grow  weary  at  times  of  what  is  said 
about  Him,  of  his  own  beliefs  regarding  Him, 


108     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

and  hunger  with  an  unappeasable  hunger  for 
Him,  and  say  over  to  himself  the  prayer  of 
George  Macdonald: 

"  Oh,  let  me  live  in  Thy  realities, 
Nor  substitute  my  notions  for  Thy  facts, 
Notion  with  notion  making  league  and  pacts. 
They  are  to  truth  as  dream  deeds  are  to  acts, 
And  questioned  make  me  doubt  of  everything. 
O  Lord,  my  God!  my  soul  gets  up  and  cries, 

'Come,    Thine    own    Self,    and    with    Thee    my    faith 
bring ' "  ? 

If  any  of  us  are  hungry  for  something  more  real 
than  that  which  we  have  in  our  Christian  lives — ■ 
sick  of  the  sham  and  the  insincerity  of  them ; 
the  forms  crumbling  away  beneath  our  touch, 
while  we  have  not  reached  to  the  great  verities 
that  lie  beyond  them — here  in  the  inner  circle  of 
Christ's  inmost  friends  we  may  come  upon,  if 
we  will^  a  new  and  living  experience  of  Him. 
We  shall  enter  into  the  secret  of  our  God  which 
is  with  those  who  fear  Him  and  who  go  to  dwell 
under  the  Almighty's  shade. 

There  are  some  who  will  recall  the  quaint  son- 
net of  John  T.  Napier,  who  worked  in  the  office 
of  the  Sunday  School  Times  in  Philadelphia,  and 
whose  genius  was  cut  untimely  short: 

"O  weary  soul,  that  yet  with  willing  feet 

Wouldst  trudge  o'er  many  a  hard  and  rugged  way 
In  uncomplaining  toil,  and  never  stay 
Until  within  His  courts  thine  eyes  shall  meet 


THE    INNER    CIRCLE  109 

The  splendour  of  His  look,  to  thee  be  sweet 
That  word  He  spake:  'Unto  me  pray, 
Not  as  the  hypocrites,  in  blaze  of  day, 

In  public  paths  or  in  the  open  street, 

"'But  in  thy  closet  kneeling;  there  within 
Unto  me  make  thy  prayer,  to  me  thy  moan, 
And  I  will  hear  in  heaven  where  I  abide, 
And  I  will  give  thee  cleansing  for  thy  sin — 

Yea,  we  together  shall  abide  alone. 
Shut    thou    thy    door;    heaven's    gate    shall    open 
wide/  " 

We  shall  find  these  things  if  we  want  them — the 
experience  of  God  and  the  secret  of  the  Most 
High — in  this  near  companionship  of  our  Master 
Jesus  Christ.  He  is  here  as  truly  as  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago  He  stood  before  those  Jews 
pleading,  "  Ye  will  not  come  to  me  that  ye 
might  have  life."  He  stands  here  calling  us, 
calling  us,  calling  us  into  the  number  of  His 
most  intimate  friends — into  the  limits  of  the 
inner  circle  of  those  He  loves.  Do  we  not  wish 
to  go  in — further  in  than  ever  in  all  the  years 
that  have  gone  by  ?  And  when  we  think  on  what 
is  there,  and  what  is  to  be  missed  if  we  do  not 
go  in,  are  we  not  willing  to  pay  the  price?  Are 
we  not  willing?  If  we  are,  shall  we  not  go  in 
together  to  the  inner  circle  of  our  Master's 
dearest,  closest  friends,  and  sit  down  there  by 
His  side,  to  come  no  more  out  forever? 


VI 

LOOKING  AWAY  TO  JESUS 

THE  first  summer  conference  I  ever  at- 
tended was  the  General  Conference  for 
Christian  Workers  at  Northfield  more 
than  twenty  years  ago.  At  the  end  of  my  sopho- 
more year  in  college  I  was  persuaded  to  come 
up  by  a  friend  who  is  now  a  missionary  in  India. 
We  lived  in  what  was  then  called  Hillside  Cot- 
tage, and  the  first  night  through  a  heavy  rain  we 
made  our  way  across  the  ploughed  fields,  where 
the  Auditorium  now  stands,  to  the  evening  meet- 
ing in  Stone  Hall.  Mr.  Moody  spoke  that  night 
on  Elisha's  miracle  in  filling  the  waterpots  with 
oil  and  thus  giving  that  widow  woman  money 
enough  with  which  to  discharge  her  debt  and 
save  her  children  from  her  creditors.  I  saw  new 
things  that  night.  I  saw  the  neighbours  peeking 
through  the  windows  at  the  carrying  of  all  those 
water  jars  to  the  widow's  house,  the  joy  that 
filled  the  widow's  heart  when  her  two  little  chil- 
dren were  saved  from  the  clutches  of  her 
creditor,  and  I  understood  for  the  first  time  what 
our  imaginations  were  given  to  us  for,  and  how 
living  a  book  this  Bible  is. 

Professor  Drummond  was  present  that  sum- 
mer and  Dr.  A.  J.  Gordon,  and  a  great  many 

110 


LOOKING    AWAY    TO    JESUS        111 

others  whose  Hving  words  left  an  indehble  im- 
pression on  all  the  men  and  women  who  came 
under  their  influence;  but  of  all  those  we  heard 
that  summer  I  think  there  was  scarcely  anyone 
who  left  a  deeper  and  stronger  impression  on  the 
lives  of  the  men  and  women  who  had  gathered 
that  month  of  August  than  old  Dr.  William 
Henry  Green.  He  was  the  foremost  Hebrew 
scholar  in  America  and  one  of  the  simplest  and 
most  gentle  Christian  men.  The  blessing  that 
came  to  me  through  him  came  indirectly, 
through  my  friend  who  had  persuaded  me  to 
come.  He  was  one  of  the  most  devout,  earnest 
Christian  men  I  have  ever  known,  and  he  was 
making  it  his  practice  then  to  spend  the  first 
hour  of  every  day  over  a  page  in  the  Psalms. 
He  said  he  got  that  suggestion  from  Dr.  Green, 
who  had  once  mentioned  in  one  of  his  classes  at 
Princeton  that  for  years  he  had  been  in  the  habit 
the  first  thing  every  day  of  reading  a  page  from 
the  Psalms,  to  nourish  his  life  on  the  beauty  and 
glory  that  is  there.  I  learned  a  great  many  les- 
sons afterwards  from  Dr.  Green,  as  did  every 
one  who  ever  came  under  his  influence.  Any 
who  were  in  classes  of  his  will  remember  the  al- 
most womanly  tenderness  of  his  love  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  the  way  in  which  he  often  broke  down 
in  the  midst  of  his  prayers,  having  to  pause  for 
a  while  until  he  recovered  his  self-possession 
again  and  was  able  to  go  on  to  the  end.  I  re- 
member what  I  think  must  have  been  one  of  his 


112     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

favourite  hymns,  for  he  gave  it  out  so  often  when 
he  led  chapel  services.     It  began: 

"  Enthroned  on  high,  Almighty  Lord, 
The  Holy  Ghost  send  down." 

and  some  stanzas  down  this  couplet  came: 

"  And  bring  us  where  no  clouds  conceal 
The  beauty  of  Thy  face." 

And  nobody  could  feel  that  influence  without 
being  able  to  trace  back  to  those  early  morning 
hours  over  the  Psalms  much  of  the  power, 
beauty  and  simplicity  of  the  man's  Christian 
faith  and  character.  Very  many  times  since  I 
have  come  back  to  that  suggestion  of  spending 
the  first  moments  of  the  day  over  a  page  of  the 
Psalms.  They  have  this  great  advantage  over 
other  portions  of  the  Bible:  they  are  so  easily 
detachable.  We  feel  regarding  many  other 
parts  of  the  Bible  that  we  scarcely  have  any 
right  to  take  to  ourselves  some  isolated  verse. 
In  the  Psalms  we  feel  that  every  verse  may  be 
separated,  that  each  throbs  with  some  old  moral 
experience  of  long  years  ago,  breathing  out  in 
those  old  days  struggles,  conflicts,  aspirations 
and  desires  that  are  akin  to  those  that  fill  our 
own  hearts. 

I  have  been  very  much  struck  lately  in  read- 
ing biographies  with  the  way  in  which  the  lives 
of  great  and  strong  men  have  received  practical 


LOOKING    AWAY    TO    JESUS        113 

nourishment  from  the  study  of  the  Psahns.  In 
Thring's  "  Life  and  Letters,"  a  book  which  every 
college  man  ought  to  read,  you  may  recall  the 
way  in  which  he  speaks  in  his  private  journal  of 
the  feeling  he  has  that  he  was  living  over  again 
all  the  experiences  of  the  men  who  wrote  the 
Psalms,  and  that  what  they  wrote  down  there 
in  that  ancient  time  was  only  forecasting  the  bat- 
tles of  his  own  life.  Some  of  you  doubtless  re- 
call the  passage  in  Morley's  first  volume  of  the 
life  of  Gladstone,  in  which  he  quotes  an  ex- 
tract from  one  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  diaries  regard- 
ing the  place  which  the  Psalms  had  filled  in  his 
life :  ''  On  most  occasions  of  very  sharp  pres- 
sure or  trial,  some  word  of  Scripture  has  come 
home  to  me  as  if  borne  on  angels'  wings.  I 
should  put  some  down  now,  for  the  continuance 
of  memory  is  not  to  be  trusted.  ( i )  In  the  winter 
of  1837,  Psalm  cxxviii.  This  came  in  the  most 
singular  manner,  but  it  would  be  a  long  story  to 
tell.  (2)  In  the  Oxford  contest  of  1847  (which 
was  very  harrowing)  the  verse,  *  O  Lord  God, 
Thou  strength  of  my  health,  Thou  hast  covered 
my  head  in  the  day  of  battle.'  (3)  In  the  Gor- 
ham  contest,  after  the  judgment:  'And  though 
all  this  be  come  upon  us,  yet  do  we  not  forget 
Thee;  nor  behave  ourselves  frowardly  in  Thy 
covenant.  Our  heart  is  not  turned  back ;  neither 
our  steps  gone  out  of  Thy  way.  No,  not  when 
Thou  hast  smitten  us  into  the  place  of  dragons: 
and  covered  us  with  the  shadow  of  death.'     (4) 


114     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

On  Monday,  April  17,  1853  (his  first  budget 
speech),  it  was:  'O  turn  Thee  then  unto  me, 
and  have  mercy  upon  me :  give  Thy  strength  unto 
Thy  servant,  and  help  the  son  of  Thine  hand- 
maid.' Last  Sunday  (Crimean  War  Budget)  it 
was  from  the  Psalms  for  the  day :  *  Thou  shalt 
prepare  a  table  before  me  against  them  that 
trouble  me ;  Thou  hast  anointed  my  head  with  oil 
and  my  cup  shall  be  full.'  "  It  was  a  surprise  to 
me  to  think  that  when  Mr.  Gladstone  rose  to 
speak  in  Parliament  before  presenting  his  great 
budgets,  as  he  paused  for  just  a  moment  before 
beginning,  the  thing  that  was  sometimes  in  his 
mind  was  some  verse  from  the  Psalms,  by  which 
he  was  nerving  himself  toward  the  vision  of 
great  righteousness,  and  the  fearless  expression 
of  what  he  saw  as  the  truth.  I  think  we  lose  a 
great  deal,  because  we  have  not  taken  into  our 
lives  the  living  message  of  the  Psalms  to  men 
who  are  fighting  the  battle  and  around  whom 
the  dread  adversaries  are  encamped. 

I  suppose  one  reason  why  we  do  not  do  this 
is  that  the  Psalms  have  become  so  commonplace 
to  us,  their  language  is  so  familiar  that  there  is 
no  longer  any  bite  or  tingle  to  it.  For  this 
reason  it  is  a  good  thing  for  a  man  to  read  the 
Psalms  in  some  other  language — in  French, 
Spanish,  German,  or  Latin,  or  to  take  some  other 
translation  of  the  Bible  than  that  to  which  he  is 
accustomed.  I  have  gained  a  great  deal  of  help 
myself   from   reading   the   Psalms   over   in  the 


LOOKING    AWAY    TO    JESUS        115 

American  Standard  Revised  translation,  which 
gives  new  significance  to  a  great  many  old  and 
worn  phrases.  Take,  for  example,  the  marginal 
reading  of  the  first  verse  in  the  forty-fifth 
Psalm.  It  reads,  you  remember :  "  My  heart 
overfloweth  in  a  goodly  matter;  I  speak  of  the 
things  which  I  have  made  touching  the  king." 
Now,  the  revised  margin  is :  "  My  heart  over- 
floweth with  a  goodly  matter;  I  speak:  my  work 
is  for  a  king."  Shame?  I  am  speaking  for  a 
king. 

Or  take  the  tenth  verse  of  the  fifty-ninth 
Psalm.  That  reads :  "  The  God  of  my  mercy 
shall  prevent  me."  The  new  version  reads: 
"  My  God  with  His  loving  kindnesses  will  meet 
me."  Or  take  the  third  verse  in  the  seventeenth 
Psalm,  if  we  want  something  by  which  to  test 
our  lives,  "  Thou  hast  proved  my  heart :  Thou 
hast  visited  me  in  the  night ;  Thou  hast  tried  me, 
and  findest  nothing."  Let  the  man  who  wants 
something  by  which  to  check  his  inner  moral 
life  when  he  lies  down  to  sleep  recall  that  old 
word :  "  Thou  hast  visited  me  in  the  night ;  Thou 
hast  tried  me,  and  findest  nothing  of  which  I 
need  to  be  ashamed."  Take  for  one  other  illus- 
tration the  verse,  "  They  looked  unto  Him,  and 
were  lightened."  The  new  version  reads,  "  They 
looked  unto  Him  and  were  radiant."  I  do  not 
know  what  word  can  come  to  us  more  appro- 
priately than  this  word:  the  influence  of  looking 
away  unto  Jesus  Christ  upon  our  lives  and  char- 


116     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

acters,  the  power  of  the  vision  of  Christ  to  make 
our  lives,  however  scarred  and  clouded  and  shad- 
owed they  may  have  been,  bright  and  radiant 
with  the  purity  and  the  beauty  of  His  own  life. 
If  you  will  read  two  passages,  one  from  the  Old 
and  the  other  from  the  New  Testament  (Ex. 
xxxiv.  29-35;  Matt.  xvii.  1-9),  you  will  have 
the  two  outstanding  Bible  illustrations  of  this 
power  of  the  divine  vision  to  transform  the  faces 
of  men.  As  Moses  came  down  out  of  that  secret 
fellowship  with  God,  he  knew  not,  but  others 
knew,  that  there  was  a  divine  light  shining  on 
his  face;  and  as  Jesus  went  up  into  the  moun- 
tain and  knelt  there  in  that  prayer  that  lifted 
His  life  from  the  lower  levels  into  the  very 
highest  and  most  unclouded  fellowship  with  God, 
His  face  also  shone  as  the  sun.  His  very  gar- 
ments became  all  white  and  glistening,  whiter 
than  any  fuller  on  earth  can  whiten  them.  And, 
while  doubtless  these  were  two  great  exceptional 
experiences,  the  principle  that  is  in  them  is  a 
living  principle  still,  that  the  same  vision  that 
Moses  saw  as  he  talked  with  Jehovah,  the  same 
vision  that  Jesus  saw  on  the  mountain  of  trans- 
figuration, the  vision  that  made  their  faces  shine 
as  the  sun,  will  have  power  to  make  our  lives 
all  luminous  and  radiant,  too. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  vision  is  doing  this 
still.  You  know  that  during  the  Boxer  troubles 
in  China  it  was  said  that  the  Chinese  Christians 
could  not  have  escaped  even  if  they  had  tried. 


LOOKING    AWAY    TO    JESUS        117 

because  their  faces  betrayed  them.  There  was  a 
Hght  in  their  eyes  which  their  heathen  neighbours 
recognised  as  characteristic  of  the  followers  of 
Jesus  Christ.  They  had  looked  unto  Him,  and 
their  lives  were  lightened  by  that  look.  A  little 
while  ago  Mrs.  Edward  Hume,  from  Bombay, 
showed  me  photographs  of  her  work  in  India. 
Among  the  pictures  which  she  laid  down  were 
two  that  were  conspicuous  because  of  the  great 
contrast  between  them.  The  first  of  them  was 
a  photograph  of  thirty  women,  all  of  them 
dressed  in  dark  garments,  and  in  the  middle  of 
the  forehead  of  each  one  was  a  little  ash  dot, 
showing  that  each  one  was  attached  still  to  the 
old  idolatrous  Hfe.  There  was  no  need  of  that 
mark  to  tell  you  that  about  them.  The  low 
brows,  the  unintelHgent  eyes,  the  very  aspect  of 
dejection  and  hopelessness  that  lay  across  those 
lives  told  the  story  without  any  sign  upon  their 
foreheads.  They  had  never  looked  unto  Him 
Who  is  able  to  throw  radiance  into  the  life.  The 
other  photograph  was  a  photograph  of  the  same 
number  of  women,  all  of  them  dressed  in  white. 
There  were  no  ash  spots  on  their  foreheads.  Nor 
was  the  absence  of  them  necessary  to  tell  you 
that  the  light  had  touched  those  lives.  They 
were  thirty  girls  that  Mrs.  Hume  had  long  had 
under  her  care.  The  influence  of  her  life  had 
played  on  the  lives  of  those  girls.  They  had 
passed  with  her  through  all  the  torture  of  famine 
days  in   India,     They  had  nursed  the  orphans 


118     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

when  it  was  almost  nauseating  to  do  it.  The  re- 
fining influence  of  unselfishness  and  sympathy 
with  suffering  was  stamped  upon  each  life.  A 
light  shone  in  it.  They  had  looked  unto  Christ 
and  their  faces  were  radiant. 

And  what  has  taken  place  in  these  lives  all  of 
us  have  seen  taking  place  in  other  lives.  Any 
one  is  to  be  pitied  who  has  not  a  friend,  many 
friends,  who  have  looked  away  unto  Jesus  Christ 
and  been  made  radiant,  on  whose  faces  there  is 
the  visible  light  that  comes  from  their  having 
caught  the  far-off  vision  of  the  beauty  and  per- 
fectness  of  the  Saviour.  There  is  a  chapter  in 
Dr.  Trumbull's  "  Old  Time  Student  Volunteers  " 
entitled  "  What  a  Boy  Saw  in  the  Face  of  Ado- 
niram  Judson."  Years  ago,  long  before  he  ever 
thought  of  writing  that  story,  in  his  boyhood 
days  in  Stonington,  Conn.,  when  the  journey 
from  New  England  to  New  York  was  by  train  as 
far  as  Stonington,  and  then  by  Sound  boats  to 
New  York,  Dr.  Trumbull  said  the  boys  used  to 
play  around  the  wharf  in  the  evening  in  the 
hope  of  seeing  some  great  character  of  the  na- 
tion as  he  passed  to  or  fro  between  New  England 
and  the  South.  There  was  an  accommodation 
train  that  came  in  early  in  the  evening,  about 
an  hour  before  the  express.  Immediately  after 
the  arrival  of  the  express  the  boat  put  off  for 
New  York.  Often  some  one  would  come  in  on 
the  early  train  and  have  an  hour  to  wait  before 
the  boat  left.     One  evening  the  accommodation 


LOOKING   AWAY    TO    JESUS        119 

train  came  in,  and  he  saw  a  man  get  off  the  train 
whose  appearance  immediately  attracted  the  boy. 
He  walked  up  to  him,  looking  at  him  curiously. 
Dr.  Trumbull  said  he  had  never  seen  any  such 
light  on  a  human  face  before,  and  at  last  it 
dawned  upon  him  that  the  man  was  Adoniram 
Judson,  of  whom  he  had  seen  a  picture.  He 
hurried  up  the  street  to  find  the  local  Baptist 
minister  to  bring  him  to  see  whether  this  was 
the  great  missionary.  Sure  enough,  it  was  Ado- 
niram Judson ;  but  the  Baptist  minister  forgot  all 
about  the  little  lad  as  soon  as  he  saw  the  great 
Judson,  and  fell  into  conversation  with  the  mis- 
sionary. The  boy  circled  about  meanwhile,  look- 
ing at  that  face.  Fifty  years  and  more  had 
passed  away  when  Dr.  Trumbull  told  me  the 
story.  He  had  not  forgotten,  he  would  never 
forget  until  the  day  he  died,  the  beautiful  light 
that  shone  upon  Adoniram  Judson's  face.  He 
had  been  with  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  light  was 
there  that  shone  like  the  sun,  so  that  whoever 
stood  beside  him  saw  that  Someone  had  been 
near  him  Who  gave  a  radiance  to  life. 

How  many  times  each  of  us  has  practically 
annulled  his  gospel,  and  frustrated  the  words  in 
which  he  has  proclaimed  the  gospel  simply  be- 
cause his  face  has  borne  no  corroboratory  evi- 
dence of  that  which  he  has  been  speaking  with 
his  lips. 

I  remember  reading  some  time  ago  a  chapter 
in  Dr.  Murdock's  '*  Indian  Missionary  Manual " 


120     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

dealing  with  methods  of  presenting  the  gospel, 
where  he  emphasises  the  necessity  of  presenting 
it  in  the  spirit  of  gentleness  and  love,  and  tells 
of  a  discussion  between  a  missionary  and  a 
Hindoo  disputant.  The  Hindoo  became  furious 
and  struck  at  the  missionary's  head  with  a  big 
stick.  The  spirit  of  the  gospel  which  Lacroix, 
who  was  the  missionary  concerned,  manifested 
by  word  and  look  was  such  that  the  Hindoo  au- 
dience burst  out  with  the  shout,  "  Victory,  vic- 
tory to  Jesus  Christ."  What  had  won  them? 
Lacroix  had  been  with  Jesus  Christ  and  Jesus 
had  touched  his  life  so  that  the  light  that  was  in 
Christ  was  shining  through  his  face  and  bearing 
testimony  to  the  truthfulness  of  what  he  spoke, 
and  he  acted  as  a  Christian.  A  friend  was  speak- 
ing recently  of  some  of  the  sources  of  power 
of  a  faithful  and  beloved  missionary  worker.  He 
was  a  humble  and  gentle  man  who  had  derived 
his  influence  from  his  association  with  Jesus 
Christ.  My  friend  spoke  of  the  way  the  Saviour 
had  gained  control  of  this  life  in  its  expressions. 
He  told  me  how  he  had  had  to  send  once  for  a 
plumber's  boy  to  repair  an  old-fashioned  chande- 
Her  made  of  glass  pendants.  It  was  an  old  fam- 
ily heirloom,  and  the  man  to  whom  it  belonged 
valued  it  very  highly  because  of  the  associations 
connected  with  it.  In  repairing  it  the  boy  did 
not  notice  that  in  turning  it  one  way  below  he 
was  unscrewing  it  from  the  ceiling  above,  and 
after  a  little  the  whole  massive  thing  came  down 


LOOKING   AWAY    TO    JESUS        121 

in  ruins  on  the  floor.  The  lad  stood  dazed  at 
the  havoc  he  had  caused,  and  waited  trembUngly 
for  the  owner  to  enter,  making  ready  for  the  out- 
burst he  felt  sure  would  come.  When  the  owner 
came  in  he  surveyed  the  wreck  in  silence,  and 
then  turned  to  the  frightened  boy  with  the  quiet, 
kindly  words,  "  Well,  my  lad,  I  trust  you  didn't 
hurt  yourself?  "  The  lad  was  not  a  Christian  at 
the  time,  but  that  was  the  beginning  of  his  be- 
coming one.  The  look  on  that  man's  face,  the 
evident  transformation  of  his  life  by  the  power 
of  Christ  were  irrefutable  commendations  of  the 
Saviour.  He  had  looked  away  unto  Jesus  Christ 
and  been  made  radiant  by  it. 

And  unless  we  learn  the  secret  of  looking  unto 
Jesus  Christ  and  having  our  lives  transformed 
by  our  vision  of  Him,  what  influence  will  we 
have  as  we  go  out  except  the  influence  of  nulli- 
fication upon  the  gospel  and  reproach  upon  Jesus 
Christ?  If  we  want  our  Hves  changed,  here  is 
the  secret  that  each  of  us  may  gain  for  himself 
to-day.  Looking  away  unto  Jesus  Christ  and 
keeping  our  eyes  fixed  there  is  the  secret  of  the 
radiant  light. 

First  of  all,  it  is  looking  unto  Christ  that  gives 
us  the  right  conception  of  what  character  is.  I 
look  away  from  Christ  and  I  have  one  idea  of 
what  constitutes  perfect  character.  We  are 
forming,  all  of  us,  diverse  judgments  of  ideals 
and  standards  of  life  proportioned  exactly  to  the 
clearness  of  our  vision  of  Jesus  Christ.     What 


122     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

ideals  do  we  see?  I  was  sitting  in  my  library 
the  other  day  dictating  some  letters,  and  I  hap- 
pened to  look  up  suddenly  at  Watts'  picture  of 
Sir  Galahad.  There  was  a  little  yellow  Hght 
falling  just  on  the  face  and  nowhere  else,  and  I 
said.  Is  it  possible  that  Watts  put  that  light  there 
and  I  never  saw  it  before?  I  examined  the  pic- 
ture and  found  a  stray  ray  of  sunlight  coming 
in  and  falling  upon  Sir  Galahad's  face.  I  saw 
anew  what  gave  that  picture  its  grace  and  power. 
What  Watts  had  painted  was  not  Sir  Galahad, 
but  what  Sir  Galahad  was  seeing.  What  was 
there  in  the  fresh,  wistful,  youthful  face?  What 
was  there  was  just  the  reflection  of  the  far-off 
vision  of  the  grail  Sir  Galahad  was  following. 
The  purity,  strength,  and  holiness  of  what  he 
saw  were  painted  there  in  his  life.  The  qual- 
ities of  character  which  he  was  beholding  were 
writing  themselves  on  his  face.  And  what,  as  I 
have  already  said,  is  the  significance  of  those 
words  in  the  prologue  of  the  Gospel  of  John, 
"and  the  Word  was  toward  God,"  but  that  the 
face  of  the  Word  was  ever  directed  toward  the 
face  of  the  Father,  so  that  what  we  see  in  looking 
toward  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ  is  not  so  much 
anything  original  as  a  reflection  upon  the  life  of 
Christ  of  what  He  sees  passing  in  the  face  and 
heart  of  God?  He  is  what  He  is  in  His  character 
because  He  is  looking  away  unto  what  God  is  in 
His  character.  We  will  have  in  our  lives  as  we 
go  out  precisely  those  ideals  of  character  which 


LOOKING    AWAY    TO    JESUS        123 

we  see  as  qualities  in  Christ.  Is  our  vision  of 
Him  dim,  obscure,  oblique?  We  shall  go  away 
with  defective  standards  of  judgment  as  to  our 
moral  Hfe.  Is  our  vision  of  Christ  clear  and  un- 
clouded and  direct?  If  we  have  been  brought  to 
where  no  mist  conceals  the  beauty  of  His  face, 
we  shall  go  with  our  standards  of  character  pat- 
terned after  His  own. 

Looking  away  unto  Christ  not  only  gives  a 
man  the  right  conception  of  what  character  is, 
but  it  shames  him  out  of  evil  character ;  solidifies 
him  in  the  deliberate  choice  of  the  character 
which  is  right.  Every  one  of  us  knows  the  pos- 
sibility of  doing  things  under  some  circumstances 
which  we  cannot  do  under  other  circumstances. 
If  we  are  living  with  our  faces  turned  toward 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  there  are  certain  practices 
that  become  absolutely  impossible  in  our  lives. 
You  cannot  have  certain  thoughts  if  you  are 
aware  that  Jesus  Christ  is  in  the  room,  which  you 
might  think,  barring  Him  from  your  presence. 
You  cannot  do  certain  things  with  your  hands 
realising  that  Christ  is  near  and  that  at  any 
moment  He  may  lay  His  pierced  hands  upon  your 
hands,  that  you  can  do  thinking  that  the  Saviour 
is  not  near. 

I  was  reading  again  not  long  ago  the  life  of 
Keith  Falconer,  and  some  of  his  boyhood  letters. 
In  one  he  is  speaking  of  the  hymns  of  which  he 
was  most  fond.  There  were  many  that  were  dear 
to  him,  but  none  so  dear  as  the  hymn  we  call  by 


124,     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

the  name  of  Rutherford,  "  The  Sands  of  Time 
Are  Sinking/'  especially  the  second  stanza: 

"  O  Christ,  He  is  the  fountain, 

The  deep,  sweet  well  of  love ! 
The  streams  on  earth  I've  tasted. 

More  deep  I'll  drink  above. 
There  to  an  ocean  fullness 

His  mercy  doth  expand, 
And  glory,  glory  dwelleth 

In  Immanuel's  land." 

And  then  in  another  he  goes  on  to  tell  how  with 
this  fresh,  loving  Christ,  glowing  all  warm  and 
tender  in  his  Hfe,  new  tests  have  come  to  him, 
and  certain  things  which  were  practicable  to  him 
before  he  now  finds  to  be  utterly  impossible  in 
his  life :  "  I  must  say  something  about  Jesus 
Christ,  because  I  think  He  ought  never  to  be 
left  out;  and  that  is  the  fault  I  find  with  parties 
and  balls  and  theatres:  Jesus  Christ  Who  is  the 
All  in  All  is  utterly  left  out."  Suppose  we 
ran  that  rule  across  our  lives.  How  much  evil, 
shame,  sin,  and  impurity  would  vanish  from 
them!  You  remember  the  powerful  story  that 
is  prefixed  to  the  eighth  chapter  of  the  Gospel 
of  John.  What  is  the  lesson  of  that  story  ?  How 
differently  the  presence  of  Jesus  Christ  made 
things  look !  Those  men  thought  they  were  do- 
ing a  very  fine  thing  when  they  got  that  poor 
woman  and  resolved  to  bring  her  into  Christ's 
presence.     Every  man  felt  proud  in  the  thought 


LOOKING    AWAY    TO    JESUS        125 

of  his  own  sinlessness  as  he  dragged  the  tar- 
nished woman  into  the  presence  of  the  Saviour. 
How  differently  it  looked  after  they  got  there, 
when  Jesus  wrote  with  His  finger  on  the  ground 
while  the  men  looked  and  thought.  How  utterly 
different  everything  began  to  look  to  these  men ! 
After  a  little  while  the  oldest  man  slunk  off,  and 
the  next,  and  the  next,  and  the  next,  until  Jesus 
was  left  with  the  woman  alone.  They  did  not 
feel  as  they  stood  in  Christ's  presence  as  they 
had  felt  out  in  the  street.  You  and  I  know  we 
do  not  feel  the  same  toward  sin  away  from  Him. 
H  only  we  could  school  ourselves  into  looking 
unto  Him  every  hour,  every  day,  it  would  make 
impossible  many  things  that  have  stained  and  de- 
filed our  lives. 

And  looking  away  to  Him  would  nerve  us  to 
resist  all  evil  and  to  do  the  things  that  are  right 
and  good.  You  recall  how  the  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  makes  use  of  this  con- 
ception. He  is  thinking  of  the  Christian  life  as 
a  race  to  be  run.  On  every  side  of  the  course, 
banked  up  tier  above  tier,  reach  the  tens  of 
thousands  of  those  who  have  run  their  race  and 
won,  and  are  now  watching  the  living  contest- 
ants. At  the  end  of  the  course,  behind  the  goal, 
he  imagines  the  Saviour  is  standing  holding  the 
chaplets  of  olive  leaves  in  His  hand  waiting  to 
greet  the  runners  as  they  come  in.  "  Therefore 
let  us  also,  seeing  we  are  compassed  about  with 
so  great  a  cloud  of  witnesses,  lay  aside  every; 


126     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

weight,  and  the  sin  which  doth  so  easily  beset  us, 
and  let  us  run  with  patience  the  race  that  is  set 
before  us,  looking  unto  Jesus  the  author  and 
perfecter  of  our  faith."  We  should  rise  up  above 
our  craven  fear  of  those  adversaries  under  whom 
we  have  again  and  again  gone  down,  if  only  we 
kept  our  eyes  fixed  on  the  Saviour  there  waiting 
for  us  behind  the  goal.  Looking  away  to  Jesus 
would  shame  many  of  us  out  of  evil  character. 
It  would  form  and  perfect  in  us  a  more  stainless 
life. 

Looking  away  to  Jesus  Christ  Is  the  only  way 
in  which  to  nourish  and  unfold  in  each  of  us 
the  perfect  character.  One  of  the  addresses 
which  Professor  Drummond  gave  here  twenty- 
one  years  ago  was  the  address  he  published  after- 
wards under  the  title  of  "  The  Changed  Life," 
from  the  words,  "  But  we  all,  with  unveiled  face 
beholding  as  in  a  mirror  the  glory  of  the  Lord, 
are  transformed  into  the  same  image  from  glory 
to  glory,  even  as  by  the  Lord  the  Spirit."  And 
he  told  in  that  address  the  story  which  has 
grown  familiar  to  us,  of  the  little  Scotch  girl 
who  had  such  a  simple,  exquisite  character  that 
all  those  who  knew  her  marvelled  at  the  secret  of 
it,  but  to  none  would  she  betray  it,  until  at  last 
she  told  one  that  when  she  was  gone  it  would  be 
found  in  the  locket  she  had  worn  about  her  neck. 
Upon  looking  they  found  simply  a  scrap  of 
white  paper,  on  which  were  these  words,  "  Whom 
having  not  seen  I  love."    That  affection  for  the 


LOOKING    AWAY    TO    JESUS        127 

unseen  Saviour  Whom  having  not  seen  she  loved 
v^as  the  influence  that  had  been  moulding  and 
transfiguring  her  life.  And  there  is  not  one  of 
us,  however  evil  and  coarse  our  character,  how- 
ever sin  may  have  tainted  us,  who  cannot  be 
changed.  It  may  be  gradual  and  long  delayed, 
though  I  believe  it  is  possible  for  Jesus  Christ  to 
change  a  man  in  a  night.  He  could  take  any 
of  us  this  hour  and  make  new  men  of  us  if  we 
would  only  deliver  ourselves  up  unto  His  trans- 
forming power.  Some  of  you  will  have  read 
the  story  which  Dr.  James  H.  Taylor  wrote  some 
years  ago  of  the  curious  old  New  England  char- 
acter of  the  third  decade  of  the  last  century 
named  Jake  Parsons.  The  change  in  his  life 
was  far-famed,  so  significant  and  revolutionary 
had  it  been.  He  lay  down  to  sleep  one  night  an 
absolutely  drunken,  worthless  wretch,  having 
wellnigh  lost  his  power  of  speech  through  his 
dissipation,  loved  only  by  the  fragment  of  the 
family  that  was  left  to  him.  He  woke  up  the 
next  morning  an  absolutely  changed  mati.  For 
nearly  forty  years  after  that  he  lived  a  life  with- 
out blemish  or  blot.  Eight  years  after  the 
change  some  one  asked  him  what  had  produced 
it.  This  is  the  explanation  he  gave :  "  That 
night  Jesus  Christ  appeared  in  my  sleep.  His 
face,  as  I  saw  it,  seemed  so  pure,  so  lovely,  and 
so  friendly  to  me  that  when  I  awoke  I  forgot  my 
old  vices,  and  so  loved  my  Saviour  that  I  could 
not  displease  Him.     Why,  the  sight  of  the  face 


128     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

of  Jesus  was  so  pure,  so  lovely,  and  so  beautiful ! 
He  did  not  speak  to  me,  He  only  looked  at  me; 
but  His  look  told  me  that  there  was  hope  for 
me,  that  I  could  be  forgiven,  I  could  be  purified. 
I  looked  at  Him  and  cried  like  a  child ;  I  felt  that 
I  was  a  vile,  miserable,  wicked  wretch,  filthier 
than  a  dunghill.  I  cannot  tell  how  I  felt.  When 
I  looked  at  Him  I  was  too  happy  to  be  afraid ; 
but  when  I  looked  at  myself  I  was  too  afraid 
to  be  happy.  I  forgot  all  about  rum  and  to- 
bacco, 1  was  thinking  so  much  about  Christ,  so 
pure,  so  lovely,  so  beautiful,  so  friendly.  He 
was  all  heaven,  all  grace  and  beauty."  One  who 
knew  him  well,  so  Dr.  Taylor  says,  wrote :  "  For 
thirty-five  years  he  lived  a  blameless  life,  beloved 
by  everybody.  On  a  fine  summer  morning,  my 
friend  writes,  the  glorious  old-new  creature 
would  crawl  out  of  doors,  and  seating  himself 
on  the  grassy  bank  in  front  of  his  humble  home, 
turning  his  sightless  face  to  the  sun  to  feel  its 
warmth,  would  say :  '  The  door  is  open  into 
Heaven,  just  a  little  crack,  and  I  shall  soon  see 
Jesus  again.  I  shall  know  Him.  He  will  look 
just  so.'  So  he  lived  until  he  fell  asleep  in 
Jesus." 

Each  of  us  knows  his  own  life,  and  just  how 
unlike  the  life  of  Christ  it  is.  Conceited,  self- 
satisfied,  pure  but  vain  and  self-confident,  or 
scarred  with  evil  imagination,  we  may  be  bear- 
ing about  in  our  body  the  marks  that  will  never 
leave  us,  that  tell  the  story  of  vices,  haunted  by 


LOOKING    AWAY    TO    JESUS        129 

the  sins  we  would  forget,  that  cHng  all  the  closer 
to  us  the  more  we  struggle  to  lay  them  down. 
Or  if  it  is  not  this,  each  of  us  knows  the  weak- 
ness of  his  own  heart.  But  there  is  One  Who, 
if  we  will  look  away  to  Him  now,  will  take  us 
just  as  we  are,  and  will  deliver  us,  scarred  and 
full  of  shortcomings,  and  make  us  radiant  with 
His  own  light  and  glory  and  purity.  Shall  we 
not  let  the  transforming  Christ  make  a  trial  with 
us? 

I  went  one  Sunday  afternoon  in  New  York 
City  not  long  ago  to  a  religious  meeting,  where 
a  man  was  talking  to  men  about  Hoffman's  pic- 
tures of  our  Lord.  He  had  an  excellent  col- 
lection of  them  in  stereopticon  slides  which  he 
was  showing  to  this  crowd  of  men.  He  reserved 
until  the  last  Hoffman's  picture  of  Jesus  as  a 
lad  talking  with,  the  doctors  in  the  temple.  As 
he  threw  the  picture  on  the  screen,  a  beautifully 
colored  picture,  he  told  the  story  of  how  he 
came  to  be  in  possession  of  his  copy  of  it.  He 
had  gone  to  visit  Hoffman,  he  said,  immediately 
after  the  completion  of  that  painting,  and  Hoff- 
man gave  him  the  first  copy.  He  brought  that 
copy  home  and  put  it  in  his  business  office  in 
New  York  City.  One  day,  as  he  was  sitting 
there,  a  judge  from  the  Supreme  Court  of  one  of 
the  New  England  States  came  in  to  consult  him 
about  some  business.  He  saw  the  picture  stand- 
ing on  the  easel.  Instantly  his  eyes  were  at- 
tracted to  it.     He  looked  at  it  all  the  time  he 


130     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

was  discussing  his  business,  and  after  the  busi- 
ness was  over  he  sat  a  httle  while  still  looking 
at  the  picture,  and  then  went  away.  Later  in 
the  morning  he  came  back  and  said,  "  I  want  to 
see  that  Boy  again."  He  was  invited  to  sit  down, 
and  he  sat  down  and  gazed  at  that  face,  at  those 
great  open  eyes,  at  that  look  of  purity,  which 
speaks  of  such  hope  and  strength  for  men.  He 
sat  for  nearly  an  hour  looking  at  it,  and  then 
got  up,  his  eyes  very  moist,  and  walked  away. 
In  the  afternoon  he  came  back  and  said,  "  I 
would  like  to  see  that  picture  of  the  Boy  once 
more."  The  owner  gave  it  to  him,  and  said, 
"  Go  into  my  private  office,  sit  down  and  look 
at  it  as  long  as  you  want  to."  He  took  the  pic- 
ture and  went  into  the  office  and  laid  it  down 
in  his  lap  and  cried  over  it.  An  hour  passed, 
and  then  he  came  out  and  laid  the  picture  down, 
and  with  tears  running  down  his  cheeks  he  said, 
''  The  Boy  has  conquered  me."  And  he  went 
out  from  the  room  with  the  picture  of  that  Boy 
lingering  in  his  life  and  transforming  it.  He  is 
living  now,  said  the  speaker,  in  his  own  State, 
an  influential  Christian  man,  teaching  scores  of 
young  men  in  his  Bible  class  of  Him  unto  Whom 
he  had  looked  away  and  by  Whom  he  had  been 
changed. 

I  want  to  be  changed  myself  very  much  in 
many  ways  that  I  do  not  propose  to  tell  any- 
body else.  But  He  knows,  and  I  know  He  can 
do  it.  It  may  take  Him  a  long  time — ten,  twenty. 


LOOKING    AWAY    TO    JESUS        131 

fifty  years — but  I  know  that  the  changes  I  want 
made  He  can  make,  and  that  even  if  He  never 
gets  them  made  down  here  there  will  come  a 
day  when  I  shall  wake  and  be  satisfied  with  His 
likeness,  seeing  Him  as  He  is.  And  that  hope 
is  worth  all  the  world. 

Would  that  we  might  let  Him  begin  to  effect 
His  larger  and  richer  results  in  our  lives,  that 
every  one  of  us  might  fix  his  eyes  upon  Jesus 
Christ.  Looking  unto  Him.  He  will  make  us 
radiant.  We  shall  walk  in  the  light  as  He  is  in 
the  light. 


VII 
THE  UNITY  OF  HEARTS  IN  CHRIST 

WHATEVER  other  ideals  of  the  Christian 
Church  men  may  have  formed,  it  is 
certain  that  the  conception  entertained 
by  our  Lord  was  that  the  Christian  Church  should 
be  a  body  of  men  and  women  who  had  learned 
to  love  God  and  His  Spirit  and  His  Son  with  all 
their  hearts  and  minds  and  souls  and  strength, 
and  one  another  better  than  they  loved  them- 
selves. Our  Lord  gave  Himself,  through  His 
short  life,  to  the  working  out  of  this  ideal.  He 
gathered  around  Him  a  little  company  of  men 
whom  He  loved  with  a  great  love,  whom  He 
sought  to  teach  what  love  was  by  revealing  to 
them  a  new  kind  of  love  in  Himself.  He  hoped 
to  persuade  these  men  to  love  one  another  with 
the  same  love  wherewith  He  Himself  loved  them. 
By  example  He  strove  to  reveal  to  them  what  this 
new  love  that  filled  Llis  own  heart  was,  and  to 
lead  them  to  have  it  for  one  another. 

In  some  measure  the  early  Church  learned  this 
lesson.  As  the  heathen  world  looked  on,  it  was 
the  afifection  that  bound  the  Christians  together 
that  most  deeply  impressed  it.  "  Behold,"  they 
said,  "  how  these  Christians  love  one  another." 
A  great  many  came  into  the  Church  undoubtedly 
13^ 


UNITY    OF    HEARTS    IN    CHRIST  133 

drawn  there  by  the  warmth  of  friendship  and  love 
which  visibly  united  the  early  Christians.  If  one 
had  and  another  lacked,  the  one  who  had  shared 
his  possessions  with  the  one  who  lacked.  The 
early  Church  went  out  in  power  to  begin  its  early 
conquests  for  Christ  because  it  went  out  with 
a  heart  full  of  warm  and  unselfish  love,  because  it 
could  say  to  a  world  filled  with  people  who  knew 
no  such  fellowship :  "  Come,  join  our  brother- 
hood; we  will  love  you;  we  will  take  you  into 
friendship;  you  too  may  belong  to  this  unique 
society  of  men  and  women  who  are  all  truly 
lovers  one  of  another." 

"  Now,  for  the  first  time,"  says  Harnack  in 
"The  Expansion  of  Christianity  in  the  First 
Three  Centuries,"  "that  testimony  rose  among 
men,  which  cannot  ever  be  surpassed,  the  testi- 
mony that  GOD  IS  LOVE.  The  first  great 
statement  of  the  new  religion,  into  which  the 
fourth  evangelist  condensed  its  central  principle, 
was  based  entirely  and  exclusively  on  love :  '  We 
love,  because  He  first  loved  us/  *  God  so  loved  the 
world,'  *  A  new  commandment  give  I  unto  you, 
that  ye  love  one  another/  And  the  greatest, 
strongest,  deepest  thing  Paul  ever  wrote  is  the 
hymn  commencing  with  the  words,  '  Though  I 
speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  angels,  but 
have  not  love,  I  am  become  sounding  brass  or 
a  clanging  cymbal.'  The  new  language  on  the 
lips  of  Christians  was  the  language  of  love. 

"  But  it  was  more  than  a  language,  it  was  a 


134     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

thing  of  power  and  action.  The  Christians 
really  considered  themselves  brothers  and  sisters, 
and  their  actions  corresponded  to  this  belief.  On 
this  point  we  possess  two  unexceptionable  testi- 
monies from  pagan  writers.  Says  Lucian  of  the 
Christians :  *  Their  original  law-giver  had  taught 
them  that  they  were  all  brethren,  one  of  another 
.  .  .  .  They  become  incredibly  alert  when 
anything  of  this  kind  occurs,  that  affects  their 
common  interests.  On  such  occasions  no  ex- 
pense is  grudged.'  And  Tertullian  (Apolog. 
xxxix)  observes :  *  It  is  our  care  for  the  helpless, 
our  practice  of  loving  kindness,  that  brands  us  in 
the  eyes  of  many  of  our  opponents.  "  Only  look," 
they  say,  "  look  how  they  love  one  another !  " 
(They  themselves  being  given  to  mutual  hatred,) 
"  Look  how  they  are  prepared  to  die  for  one  an- 
other! "  (They  themselves  being  readier  to  kill 
each  other.)  '  Thus  had  this  saying  been  really 
fulfilled :  '  Hereby  shall  all  men  know  that  ye  are 
my  disciples,  if  ye  have  love  one  to  another.' 

"  The  gospel  thus  became  a  social  message. 
The  preaching  which  laid  hold  of  the  outer  man, 
detaching  him  from  the  world,  and  uniting  him  to 
his  God,  was  also  a  preaching  of  solidarity  and 
brotherliness.  The  gospel,  it  has  been  truly  said, 
is  at  bottom  both  individualistic  and  socialistic. 
Its  tendency  toward  mutual  association,  so  far 
from  being  an  accidental  phenomenon  in  its  his- 
tory, is  inherent  in  its  character.  It  spiritualises 
the  irresistible  impulse  which  draws  one  man  to 


UNITY    OF    HEARTS    IN    CHRIST  135 

another,  and  it  raises  the  social  connection  of 
human  beings  from  the  sphere  of  a  convention 
to  that  of  a  moral  obligation.  In  this  way  it 
serves  to  heighten  the  worth  of  man,  and  essays 
to  recast  contemporary  society,  to  transform  the 
socialism  which  involves  a  conflict  of  interests 
into  the  socialism  which  rests  upon  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  spiritual  unity  and  common  goal.  This 
was  ever  present  to  the  mind  of  the  great  apostle 
to  the  Gentiles.  In  his  little  churches,  where 
each  person  bore  his  neighbour's  burden,  Paul's 
spirit  already  saw  the  dawning  of  a  new  human- 
ity, and  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  he  has 
voiced  this  feeling  with  a  thrill  of  exultation. 
Far  in  the  background  of  these  churches,  like 
some  unsubstantial  semblance,  lay  the  division 
between  Jew  and  Gentile,  Greek  and  Barbarian, 
great  and  small,  rich  and  poor.  For  a  new  hu- 
manity had  now  appeared,  and  the  apostle  viewed 
it  as  Christ's  body,  in  which  every  member  served 
the  rest  and  each  was  indispensable  in  his  own 
place." 

We  must  put  it  in  this  way  if  we  would  do 
justice  to  the  whole  great  truth  as  it  lay  in  the 
mind  of  Christ  and  as  it  was  afterwards  devel- 
oped by  St.  Paul.  It  is  true  that  the  Christian 
society  is  a  band  of  men  and  women  who  love 
one  another  with  this  great  unselfish  love.  But 
our  Lord  and  Paul  carried  the  thought  of  Chris- 
tian society  far  beyond  this.  They  thought  of 
the  Christian  society,  as  our  Lord  puts  it,  as  a 


136     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

vine  of  which  the  Hfe-blood  was  Christ,  of  which 
He  Himself  was  the  trunk,  the  disciples  being 
the  branches,  springing  out  from  Him,  all  of 
them  bound  together  because  they  were  common 
branches  of  one  vine,  while  there  flowed  through 
them  all,  whether  upper  branches  or  lower 
branches,  large  branches  or  small  branches,  the 
one  common  tide  of  the  single  life.  In  Paul's 
mind  the  Christian  Church  was  a  society  of  men 
and  women  who  loved  one  another  with  a  love 
so  real,  so  full,  so  life  absorbing,  that  he  could  not 
think  of  any  figure  of  speech  more  truly  expres- 
sive of  it  than  to  say  that  the  Church  was  a 
body,  one  organic  unity,  with  hands,  eyes, 
feet,  and  ears,  but  one  body,  one  common 
life  binding  all  altogether,  so  that  the  hands 
could  not  say  to  the  eyes,  "  We  have  no  need 
of  you  " ;  nor  the  honourable  parts  to  the  unhon- 
ourable  parts,  "  We  are  not  one  with  you,"  for 
all  were  members  of  one  body ;  and  the  hearing, 
smelling,  tasting,  walking,  handling  members,  all 
different  in  their  functions  and  duties,  were  yet 
bound  together  by  one  common  life,  separable 
only  at  the  pain  of  each  and  at  the  mutilation  and 
ultimately  the  death  of  the  body  which  they  all 
made.  If  one  member  suffers  all  the  members 
suffer  with  it ;  if  one  member  is  honoured  all  the 
members  are  honoured  with  it;  if  one  member 
lacks,  all  the  members  want  with  it ;  if  one  mem- 
ber possesses,  all  the  members  own  with  it. 
What  a  marvellous  transformation  would  pass 


UNITY    OF    HEARTS    IN    CHRIST  137 

over  our  Christian  life  if  our  conception  of  our 
relationship  to  one  another  fulfilled  this  great 
ideal  of  Paul.  Now,  what  is  malice  but  rejoic- 
ing in  the  hardship  and  loss  of  others?  But  in 
the  body  when  one  member  suffers  all  the  mem- 
bers suffer  with  it  and  there  can  be  no  malice. 
What  is  envy  but  repining  when  others  are  hon- 
oured ?  But  if  the  body  is  all  one  no  member  can 
be  honoured  and  the  other  members  not  to  be 
honoured  with  it.  What  is  selfishness  but  desir- 
ing that  which  others  have  not,  or  being  vexed 
because  others  have  that  which  we  have  not? 
But  if  all  the  members  are  one  body,  one  can 
have  nothing  that  all  the  others  do  not  possess, 
nor  any  lack  anything  for  the  want  of  which  all 
the  others  do  not  suffer,  too. 

You  remember  the  old  and  quaint  story  of 
Charles  Kingsley.  Two  monks  had  lived  to- 
gether in  a  cave  remote  from  men  until  at  last, 
wearied  of  the  monotony  of  their  quiet  life,  one 
of  them  made  the  suggestion  that  they  vary  it 
by  quarrelling  after  the  fashion  of  the  world. 
But  the  monk  to  whom  the  suggestion  was  made 
said :  "  Brother,  we  have  nothing  to  quarrel 
about.  How  can  we  change  our  life?  What 
have  we  to  quarrel  over  ?  "  "  We  will  take  this 
stone,"  replied  the  other,  "  and  we  will  lay  it 
down  between  us.  And  I  will  say.  This  stone 
is  mine.  And  you  will  say,  No,  the  stone  is 
mine.  And  so  we  will  quarrel  after  the  way  of 
the  world."     So  they  took  the  stone  and  laid 


138     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

it  down  between  them,  and  the  first  monk  said, 
"  This  stone  is  mine."  The  second  monk  said 
hesitatingly,  "  I  think,  brother,  the  stone  is 
mine."  "  Oh,  very  well,"  said  the  monk  who 
had  suggested  the  quarrel,  "  if  the  stone  is  thine, 
take  it."  It  was  impossible  that  between  those 
two  lives,  bound  in  a  real  unity  for  years,  there 
should  be  any  divergence.  What  one  had  the 
other  possessed. 

It  would  be  well  if  we  realised  this  truth,  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  isolated  life.  Every 
attainment  of  every  one  affects  every  other, 
every  failure  of  every  one  affects  every  other. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  isolated  sin  or  purity. 
Your  purity  helps  to  make  me  pure,  my  sin 
helps  to  defile  you.  In  all  this  world  we  cannot 
move  faster  than  all  move.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  single  life  getting  perfection  alone. 
We  must  remember  that  great  saying  of  Paul  in 
the  second  letter  to  the  Corinthians,  "  But  we  all, 
with  unveiled  face  beholding  as  in  a  mirror  the 
glory  of  the  Lord,  are  transformed  into  the  same 
image."  Nobody  can  do  it  alone.  Paul  under- 
stood this  perfectly.  You  will  find  him  striking 
this  note  again  and  again  in  his  Epistles,  that  no 
solitary  life  can  ever  come  to  the  fulness  of 
God's  ideal  for  it  alone.  We  shall  only  reflect 
Christ  perfectly  as  we  all  reflect  Him ;  we  shall 
only  behold  Him  clearly  as  we  all  behold  Him. 
We  are  all  of  us  hampering  or  helping  one  an- 
other.   Our  lives  are  bound  together  not  as  our 


UNITY    OF    HEARTS    IX    CHRIST  139 

ten  fingers  may  be  interlaced,  but  as  my  hand 
is  a  part  of  my  body.  Just  as  truly  as  my  hand 
is  a  part  of  my  body  are  your  life  and  my  life 
parts  of  one  another,  one  common  tide  flowing 
through  them  both.  And  all  evil,  disease,  sick- 
ness, and  wrong  in  any  one  of  us  is  just  so 
much  crime  against  every  other  one  of  us. 
Every  victory,  triumph,  purity  of  life  and  soul 
is  just  so  much  victory  won  for  every  other 
human  life. 

It  is  true  that  the  Christian  Church  is  a  gath- 
ering of  men  and  women  who  love  one  another 
with  a  great  and  unselfish  love.  It  is  true  that 
it  is  a  gathering  of  men  and  women  who  are 
parts  of  one  another,  just  as  truly  as  our  eyes 
and  our  ears  and  our  hands  are  members  of  this 
one  body  of  ours.  I  suppose  that  for  many  of 
us  putting  it  this  way  is  a  difficult  thing.  We 
can  understand  how  a  physical  body  can  be 
united,  but  we  do  not  understand  how  a  great 
mass  of  human  beings  can  constitute  an  organic 
unity  as  a  body  does.  This  is  because  we  do 
not  know  what  Hfe  is.  It  is  true  that  we  are 
one  with  God  in  a  far  more  real  and  true  sense 
than  that  our  bodies  constitute  one  organism ; 
it  is  equally  true  that  we  are  one  with  one  an- 
other in  as  true  a  sense  as  it  is  true  that  our 
physical  bodies  are  one  physical  unity. 

But  if  we  cannot  take  in  Paul's  great  thought 
we  can  grasp  the  other  metaphor,  in  which  he 
thinks  of  the  Christian  Church  as  a  great  fam- 


140     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

ily  of  which  God  is  the  Father  and  in  which  all 
the  different  men  and  women  sustain  to  one 
another  a  relationship  of  brotherly  and  sisterly 
love,  such  as  bound  the  Master,  Jesus  Christ,  the 
elder  Brother,  and  His  disciples  together.  Is 
that  true  of  the  Christian  church  to  which  we 
belong?  Think  of  your  church  in  your  com- 
munity. Is  it  a  family  in  this  sense?  You 
know  how  our  Lord  looked  forward  to  Heaven 
and  made  clear  what  it  was  to  be,  by  speaking 
of  it  as  His  Father's  house,  the  home,  the  meet- 
ing place  of  the  family,  where  by  and  by  when 
all  the  struggle  and  work  of  life  are  over  the 
whole  family  will  gather,  as  oftentimes  the  hu- 
man family  gathers  at  Christmas  time  or  Thanks- 
giving Day — the  elder  children  who  have  gone 
far  away,  the  younger  children  who  stayed  at 
home — and  the  whole  unbroken  family  sits  down 
together  in  the  evening,  while  the  rich  family  love 
binds  them  together  into  one.  That  is  what  the 
Christian  Church  is  meant  to  be — a  gathering 
of  men  and  women  loving  as  brothers  and  sis- 
ters love  one  another;  yes,  even  more  than  that, 
loving  with  the  kind  of  love  that  Jesus  Christ 
reveals  in  the  family  life  of  His  own  Father's 
home.  How  daringly  Paul  puts  this  in  the  Epis- 
tle to  the  Ephesians  when  he  speaks  of  the  re- 
lationship between  Christ  and  His  Church  as 
being  akin  to  what  he  calls  that  "  great  mys- 
tery," the  most  close  of  all  human  relationships, 
the   relationship  between  husbands   and  wives! 


UNITY    OF    HEARTS    IN    CHRIST  141 

"  Husbands,  love  your  wives,  even  as  Christ  also 
loved  the  Church."  Both  were  to  leave  fathers 
and  mothers,  and  cleave  to  one  another,  and  be 
one.  Here  Paul  says  the  great  mystery  comes 
in — even  as  Christ  and  His  Church  are  one. 

The  dearest  and  most  intimate  home  life  of 
which  we  may  know,  that  home  where  love 
binds  together  in  the  closest  and  most  unclouded 
intimacy  and  confidence,  where  no  angry  word 
is  ever  heard,  where  no  angry  look  is  ever  seen, 
where  you  breathe,  as  you  cross  the  threshold, 
the  atmosphere  which  you  know  to  be  of  that 
other  home,  our  Father's  home — all  this  but 
symbolises  to  us  the  relationship  that  should 
exist  between  us  as  members  of  Christ's  Church. 
We  ought  to  feel  a  great  wave  of  love  sweeping 
over  us,  carrying  us  out  of  our  lives  of  jealousy, 
envy,  malice,  bitterness,  and  evil,  and  welding 
us  together  in  one  deep  consciousness  of  family 
life,  loving  as  one  body  in  which  we  are  mem- 
bers one  of  the  other.  We  ought  to  feel  that  the 
Christian  Church  came  into  the  world  not  to  be 
a  form  or  a  guild  for  worship,  but  to  be  first  of 
all  a  loving  union  of  men  and  women  bound 
one  to  another  in  a  consuming,  absorbing,  un- 
selfish love. 

Do  we  feel  this  in  our  hearts?  Do  we  not 
feel  it  now  as  we  think  of  the  beauty  of  Christ's 
conception  and  ideal  for  His  Church?  Is  there 
not  a  great  outgoing  of  our  life  toward  those 
other  lives  round  about  us,  a  great  desire  to  be 


142     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

more  to  them,  to  love  them  more  unreservedly, 
to  realise  actually  in  our  daily  life  what  Paul 
meant  when  he  said  that  we  were  all  of  us  one 
body  in  Christ — suffering  each  of  us  with  the 
rest,  honoured  each  of  us  with  the  rest,  lacking 
each  of  us  with  the  rest?  We  are  one  body  and 
Jesus  Christ  is  Head  over  all. 

Would  that  it  were  possible  to  make  all  the 
vital  significance  of  this  truth  clear.  Such  unity 
as  this  is  an  essential  condition  of  our  securing 
the  knowledge  we  need  as  Christians.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  knowing  Christ  fully  all  by 
one's  self.  You  may  know  a  little  bit  of  Christ 
all  by  yourself,  but  you  will  never  know  Christ 
fully  outside  of  the  brotherhood.  It  is  only  as 
we  all  know  Christ  together  that  any  one  of 
us  can  know  Christ  alone.  I  see  one  beauty  in 
Him,  you  see  another  beauty  in  Him.  It  is  only 
as  we  sit  down  side  by  side  and  each  share  with 
the  other  the  beauty  that  we  have  seen  that  each 
of  us  can  see  Him  in  His  perfect  beauty.  No 
single  member  of  the  Christian  Church  can  draw 
off  alone  and  apprehend  Him  or  drink  in  the 
fulness  of  the  glory  of  His  perfect  character.  It 
is  as  we  draw  close  together  and  love  one  an- 
other with  great  discerning  love  that  we  are 
able  to  apprehend  the  fulness  that  there  is  in 
Jesus  Christ.  Most  of  us  get  our  truth  from 
others.  I  can  look  back  over  the  great  lives 
from  which  almost  all  I  have  got  has  come  to 
me.     You  can  look  out  over  the  lives  which 


UNITY    OF    HEARTS    IN    CHRIST  143 

you  know  have  made  your  life  what  it  is.  You 
can  think  of  so  and  so.  He  gave  you  this 
thought  about  Christ.  You  can  think  of  so  and 
so.  She  showed  you  this  beauty  about  Christ. 
It  is  as  we  all  come  to  know  Christ  that  any 
one  of  us  shall  come  to  know  Him.  It  is  only 
"  with  all  saints  "  that  we  shall  be  able  to  com- 
prehend what  is  the  breadth  and  length  and 
depth  and  height  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ 
which  passeth  knowledge.  All  may  know  what 
one  can  never  know. 

And  there  are  some  truths  that  we  cannot  see 
in  any  manner  outside  this  Christian  fellowship. 
It  is  only  as  our  hearts  are  filled  full  of  the  love 
that  binds  all  Christ's  together  that  we  can  un- 
derstand these  truths.  You  remember  that  other 
verse  in  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians, 
"  Till  we  all  attain  unto  the  unity  of  the  faith, 
and  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto 
a  full-grown  man,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stat- 
ure of  the  fulness  of  Christ."  There  is  that 
"  all "  again.  We  shall  never  come  alone  or 
apart;  we  shall  never  come  into  this  unity  of 
the  faith  and  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God 
until  we  all  come. 

One  of  the  pathetic  things  of  our  day  is  the 
way  in  which  the  Christian  Church  has  lost  what 
men  outside  are  groping  after.  Here  is  the  im- 
pulse that  drives  the  socialistic  movement  of 
our  day.  It  gets  its  power  from  proposing  to 
supply   what   Christ   came   to   give.     He   came 


144     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

that  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  men's  hearts  for 
fellowship  and  equality  should  be  satisfied.  He 
preached  here  in  this  world  nineteen  hundred 
years  ago  a  unity  of  life,  closer,  more  intimate 
than  any  ever  known  outside  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Why  shall  we  not  go  out  into  the 
world  to  say :  "  O  world,  looking  for  fellow- 
ship, seeking  after  unity  of  life,  we  have  it  all. 
Here  is  the  secret  of  it,  if  you  will  come  with 
us.  And  you  will  never  find  it  unless  you  will 
come  with  us,  and  join  this  society  of  ours,  the 
fellowship  of  God." 

And  just  as  such  unity  as  this  is  essential  to 
Christian  knowledge,  it  is  essential  also  to  the 
efficiency  of  the  service  of  Christ's  Church  in  the 
world.  It  is  all  one  body,  says  Paul,  but  there 
are  diverse  functions;  different  members  have 
different  duties  to  discharge.  If  all  the  body 
were  an  eye,  where  were  the  smelling?  If  all 
the  body  were  an  hand,  where  were  the  seeing? 
There  are  diverse  functions,  but  it  is  all  one 
body.  What  a  blessing  it  would  be  if  we  could 
realise  such  a  unity  in  Christian  life  and  ser- 
vice! We  do  feel  it  at  times.  We  belong  to 
scores  of  different  church  bodies,  but  we  are  all 
one.  These  differences  are  as  nothing  to  us  as 
we  sit  together  in  the  presence  of  Christ.  In  a 
real  sense  it  is  true  that  we  are  one  mighty 
army  and  that  our  differences  are  merely  divi- 
sional separations.  But  I  suspect  that  many  of 
us  are  missing  God's  personal  spiritual  blessing 


UNITY    OF    HEARTS    IN    CHRIST  145 

for  our  lives  because  we  do  not  carry  the  same 
great  thought  into  our  individual  life — the 
thought  that  we  are  different  members  but  one 
body,  some  set  to  be  apostles,  some  prophets, 
some  workers  of  miracles,  some  teachers,  but 
one  spirit  running  through  us  all,  each  with  a 
peculiar  mission  and  separate  duty,  but  all  one. 
There  is  a  German  riddle  that  asks  what  is  the 
most  wonderful  thing  that  God  has  made.  The 
answer  is  the  human  face,  that  He  has  made  so 
many,  and  no  two  are  alike.  If  He  has  made 
so  many  human  faces  in  the  world  and  no  two 
of  them  alike,  do  you  suppose  He  would  dupli- 
cate His  life  plans?  Do  you  not  suppose  that 
the  great  and  rich  Father  of  all  our  lives  has 
for  each  one  of  us  a  fresh,  original  scheme  of 
His  own,  a  new,  distinct  idea  for  each  of  us? 
He  does  not  mean  that  any  one  is  simply  to 
resemble  somebody  else.  He  means  that  each 
of  us  is  to  be  our  own  true  self,  to  realise  that 
we  are  not  to  be  like  any  one  else  save  that  we 
have  the  same  spirit  that  flows  through  them. 
Each  of  us  is  to  take  up  our  own  place  and 
duty  in  the  body,  whether  humble  or  honourable, 
each  place  glorious  because  we  are  all  joined 
together  to  the  one  Head  from  Whom  we  draw 
our  common  glorious  life. 

And  this  ideal  of  unity  is  necessary  not  alone 
to  our  knowledge  and  service,  but  also  to  our 
prayer.  The  full  power  of  prayer  is  found  only 
when    it    is    corporate.      The    relationship    of 


146     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

each  one  of  us  to  God  determines  in  some  real 
way  the  relationship  of  every  one  of  us  to  God. 
Nothing  is  more  real  in  this  world  than  an- 
swered prayer,  than  fellowship  in  prayer.  No 
one  of  us  can  hope  to  realise  in  the  prayer  life 
all  that  is  there  for  us  until  every  one  of  us 
tries  to  realise  what  is  there  for  us.  It  is  only 
as  we  all  pray  that  any  one  of  us  can  pray  in 
the  fulness  of  the  joy  and  power  of  prayer. 

What  a  pathetic  thing  it  is  with  so  much  de- 
pendent upon  the  realisation  of  Christ's  ideal  of 
unity  for  His  people  that  we  are  willing  to  let 
that  unity  be  impaired?  You  know  the  things 
that  impair  it.  Falsehood  destroys  it.  It  is  the 
ground  on  which  Paul  argues  against  falsehood. 
He  does  not  say  that  lies  are  wrong  because 
they  are  contrary  to  the  character  of  God,  al- 
though this  is  true.  He  does  not  say  that  lies 
are  wrong  because  they  are  dishonourable,  al- 
though this  also  is  true.  He  says  we  cannot  lie 
because  it  disintegrates  the  Christian  society  to 
He. 

"  Put  away  all  falsehood,  therefore,"  he  says, 
"  and  speak  the  truth  one  with  another,  be- 
cause ye  are  members  one  of  another."  He 
realises  that  falsehood  is  like  a  sort  of  anarchy 
or  disease  in  the  body.  And  his  conception  is 
that  the  only  way  in  which  the  body  can  be  one  is 
that  it  should  have  the  absolute  truth  running 
through  it  all.  Every  little  lie,  black  or  grey  or 
vermilion  or  white,  bv  which  we  soil  our  lives, 


UNITY    OF    HEARTS    IN    CHRIST  147 

constitutes  just  so  much  schism  and  sin  against 
the  unity  of  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ. 

MaHce  and  evil  speaking,  and  all  unkindli- 
ness  impair  the  unity  of  this  body.  Oftentimes 
in  our  own  churches  Christ's  body  has  been 
broken  up  through  evil  slander,  gossip,  unkindly 
speech.  We  have  all  at  one  time  or  another 
seen  Christian  fellowship  impaired  in  this  way. 
"  Behold  how  great  a  matter  a  little  fire  kin- 
dleth !  "  A  perfect  hell  of  power  lies  in  these 
tongues !  I  remember  when  I  first  reached 
China,  taking  a  walk  with  a  friend  through  the 
streets  of  a  Chinese  village,  and  seeing  for  the 
first  time  a  Chinese  dog  open  his  mouth.  I 
stopped  and  asked  my  friend,  "  What  is  the  mat- 
ter with  that  dog's  mouth  ?  "  The  inside  was 
not  red  like  the  inside  of  our  dogs'  mouths,  but 
blue,  as  though  he  had  been  eating  berries.  My 
friend  said :  "  Why,  there  is  nothing  the  mat- 
ter. That  is  the  colour  of  the  mouth  of  a  Chi- 
nese dog."  How  many  Christians  there  are  who 
have  the  mouths  of  Chinese  dogs,  not  red  and 
clean  as  Christian  mouths  ought  to  be;  but 
stained  and  defiled  with  malicious  speaking,  un- 
kindly and  ungenerous  talk,  with  all  that  kind 
of  conversation  which  is  death  to  Christian 
unity.  Will  we  backbite,  be  ungenerous  and 
un-Christlike  in  our  talk  when  we  walk  in  all 
the  sweetness  and  confidence  of  our  Father's 
house?  Shall  we  not  resolve  that  we  will  cease 
from  this  sin  of  unkindly,  un-Christlike  speech, 


148     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

to  which  Paul  refers  all  through  his  Epistles  as 
much  as  to  any  other  sin  save  the  sin  of  im- 
purity, and  thus  promote  the  unity  and  harmony 
of  the  body  of  Christ? 

And  we  know,  last  of  all,  what  Is  to  promote 
and  increase  this  unity  binding  all  Christians 
together  into  one.  As  we  draw  near  Christ  we 
draw  near  to  one  another  even  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  Dr.  Trumbull  Backus  used  to  say  that  he 
always  knew  as  he  looked  over  the  report  of  the 
church  treasurer  on  what  days  the  communion 
services  had  fallen  by  the  size  of  the  missionary 
offering.  Invariably  whenever  the  offering  fell 
on  a  communion  Sunday  the  missionary  offer- 
ings were  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  per  cent, 
greater  than  on  any  other  day.  On  the  days  that 
the  people  drew  nearest  to  Jesus,  when  their 
hearts  were  melted  and  tender  with  His  love,  on 
these  days  they  drew  near  also  to  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth.  What  draws  us  close  to 
one  another  at  any  time  is  the  fact  that  each 
one  of  us  is  drawn  close  to  our  Lord.  If  only 
each  one  of  us  had  Him  perfectly  for  our  Head 
then  all  of  us  would  be  perfectly  members 
one  of  another.  Forgiveness  draws  us  together, 
and  there  is  nothing  so  severing  and  schismatic 
as  the  spirit  of  unforgiveness.  If  any  one  of 
us  cherish  in  our  hearts  any  bitter  feeling,  any 
animosity,  any  hatred  against  any  other  human 
soul,  we  are  making  it  impossible  that  we  should 
be  true   members   of  the   Church  of  Christ.     I 


UNITY    OF    HEARTS    IN    CHRIST  149 

heard  of  a  church  once  in  which  there  were  two 
brothers  who  would  not  speak  to  one  another. 
Is  it  possible  that  any  blessing  of  God  could 
come  down  upon  that  church?  If  there  is  any 
hate  in  our  hearts,  any  unkindliness,  let  us  lay 
it  aside.  If  there  is  any  person  in  all  this  world 
against  whom  we  are  bearing  a  grudge,  let  us 
at  once  go  or  write  a  letter  to  that  person  for- 
giving him  freely  from  our  hearts  now.  If  we 
forgive  not  our  brothers  their  trespasses,  neither 
will  our  Heavenly  Father  forgive  our  trespasses. 
There  is  nothing  so  much  like  the  cross  of  Christ 
as  forgiveness.  When  we  have  lifted  up  every- 
thing in  our  lives  until  all  the  self-pride,  bitter- 
ness, malice,  and  envy  are  all  dropped  out  of 
them,  then  we  know  in  part  what  the  cross  meant 
to  Christ,  then  our  hearts  all  tender  will  be  ready 
to  enter  into  the  secret  of  Christ's  uniting  love. 
And  if  we  will  draw,  all  of  us,  close  to  Him  in 
a  great  common  service,  as  well  as  in  love  and 
forgiveness,  we  shall  find  ourselves  realising 
increasingly  the  communion  of  saints  and  the 
unity  of  the  body  of  Christ. 

Whatever  may  be  the  differences  which  sep- 
arate all  those  who  belong  to  Christ  from  one 
another  here  on  the  earth — the  incidental  dif- 
ferences of  speech,  of  complexion,  of  manner  of 
life,  of  history  and  tradition — back  of  all  these 
the  common  love  for  our  common  Lord  ought 
to  bind  us  all  together  into  one,  be  we  Chinese, 
Japanese,  African,  Armenian,  Bulgarian,  Amer- 


150     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

ican,  or  English.  From  whatever  land  we  come, 
to  whatever  denomination  we  belong,  whatever 
our  social  condition  may  be,  if  we  are  Christ's 
we  are  one  another's  also,  and  all  of  us  are  one 
body  in  Him.  Jesus  is  waiting  to  reveal  to  us 
how  one  we  are,  how  unreal  are  all  the  social 
and  caste  lines  that  divide  us,  how  un-Christian 
all  the  lines  of  separation  are  that  are  run  by 
wealth  or  education  or  social  inheritance ;  that, 
after  all,  the  one  fundamental  fact  of  the  Chris- 
tian life,  if  we  have  that  life  at  all,  is  that  we 
are  God's,  and  therefore  one  with  all  who  are 
God's ;  that  I  am  your  friend  and  you  are  my 
friend;  what  you  have  is  mine  and  what  I  have 
is  yours ;  your  honour  is  my  honour,  and  my 
shame  your  shame,  and  the  sufferings  of  one  the 
sufferings  of  us  all.  When  we  have  learned  this 
we  shall  have  received  the  Christian  inheritance 
and  have  entered  into  the  experience  of  the  re- 
peated and  solemn  affirmation  of  our  creed,  "  I 
believe  in  the  Communion  of  Saints." 


VIII 

THE     MASTER,     THE     MAKER     OF 
STRONG   HEARTS 

**  TESUS  looked  upon  him,  and  said.  Thou  art 
J  Simon,  the  son  of  John:  thou  shalt  be 
called  Cephas  (which  is,  by  interpretation, 
Rock)."  These  words  of  our  Lord  were  spoken 
on  the  day  on  which  He  called  his  first  disciples. 
The  day  before  John  had  borne  testimony  that  He 
was  the  Lamb  of  God,  and  this  day,  seeing  Jesus 
passing  by,  had  gently  constrained  two  of  his 
disciples,  John  and  Andrew,  to  leave  him  and 
follow  Jesus.  After  they  had  satisfied  them- 
selves, Andrew  found  his  brother  Simon  and 
brought  him  to  Jesus. 

I  suppose  there  were  some  other  people  stand- 
ing around  when  Andrew  and  Simon  came;  un- 
doubtedly John  must  have  been  there;  and  one 
can  imagine  the  looks  of  surprise,  perhaps  the 
play  of  a  sneer  on  the  lips  of  some,  as  Jesus 
spoke  thus  to  Simon :  "  Thy  name  is  Simon ;  thy 
name  shall  be  Cephas,  which  is  by  interpretation, 
Rock."  Simon,  rock!  Why,  he  was  the  most 
vacillating,  changeable,  unreliable  fisherman  on 
the  sea  of  Galilee.  We  picture  John  and  Andrew 
exchanging  glances  of  astonishment  at  the  idea 
of  fickle  Simon  ever  being  called  rock.  Perhaps 
151 


152     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

the  first  influence  of  Christ's  words  upon  Simon 
may  have  been  the  same.  One  can  imagine 
the  flush  of  shame  that  would  rise  to  his  cheeks 
as  he  was  thus  singled  out  for  the  gaze  of  the 
bystanders  as  the  man  who  had  been  weak  and 
changeable,  but  who  was  now  to  be  called  rock. 
"  Rock,"  Simon  would  say  to  himself,  "  call  me 
rock!  This  man  is  giving  me  a  nickname,  and 
taunting  me."  And  then,  back  of  the  first  flush 
and  feeling  of  shame  there  came  pulsing  through 
all  Simon's  veins  the  sense  of  his  discovery.  He 
was  ashamed  of  his  fickleness.  Nobody  else 
taunted  him  with  it  with  half  the  bitterness  with 
which  he  taunted  himself.  Here,  at  last,  he 
stood  before  a  man  who  had  discovered  him,  who 
had  found  out  his  own  deepest  sense  of  discon- 
tent, who  was  giving  him  a  new  name,  and  with 
the  new  name  the  promise  of  a  new  character. 
"  I  know  thee,  Simon,"  Jesus  said ;  "  I  know 
thy  reputation  here;  I  have  watched  thee  for 
many  years,  and  know  thee  well  as  the  man  of 
most  notorious  uncertainty  and  vacillation  of 
character  to  be  found  among  the  fisher  folk  here ; 
and  I  know,  too,  that  deep  down  in  your  soul 
you  want  a  better  character.  Your  name  has 
been  Simon ;  it  shall  be  Rock."  All  Simon's  soul 
must  have  thrilled,  as  he  stood  at  last  before  a 
man  who  had  thus  found  him  in  the  depths  of 
his  life,  and  who  promised  him,  with  a  new  name, 
the  satisfaction  of  the  deepest  longings  of  his 
heart. 


MAKER   OF    STRONG    HEARTS     153 

We  read  that  on  the  next  day  the  Saviour  was 
minded  to  go  forth  into  GaHlee,  and  He  findeth 
PhiHp,  who  was  of  the  village  of  Andrew  and 
Peter.     And  when  Philip  had  satisfied  himself 
of  the  Saviour,  he  went  to  bring  Nathanael  to 
Him.    And  when  Nathanael  came,  Jesus,  seeing 
him,  said  to  those  who  stood  by,  "  Behold  an 
Israelite  indeed,  in  whom  is  no  guile !  "  "  Whence 
knowest  Thou  me  ?  "  was  Nathanael's  exclama- 
tion of  surprise.    Jesus's  answer  to  him,  though 
in   form  different,   was   in  spirit  the  same  that 
He  had  given  to  Simon  Peter.     He  had  discov- 
ered Simon  at  depths  below  the  surface ;  He  had 
promised   Simon   that   which   he   was*  not,   but 
which  he  wanted  to  be.     He  revealed  now  to 
Nathanael  that  he  understood  what  lay  back  of 
the  surface  of  his  life,  too.     "  I  knew  thy  long- 
ings, Nathanael,"  He  says,  "  as  thou  wast  under 
the  fig  tree  there.     I  knew  thy  meditations  upon 
that  ancient  day  when  Jacob,  not  so  far  away, 
laid  his  head  down  by  night  on  a  pillow  of  stone, 
and  the  heavens  were  opened  above  him,  and  the 
angels  of  God  ascended  and  descended  above  his 
head.     Thou  hast  been  wondering  whether  those 
old  days  would  ever  come  back  again,  whether 
the  privileges  of  such  association  with  God,  of 
such  divine  fellowship,  were  for  the  fathers  and 
the  patriarchs  alone.    Thy  heart  has  been  covet- 
ing an  open  heaven  once  again.    Verily,  I  say 
unto  thee,  thine  own  eyes  shall  see  the  heavens 
open,  and  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  de- 


) 


154     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

scending  upon  the  Son  of  Man."  I  imagine  there 
were  no  smiles  among  the  bystanders  this  time, 
but  deep  down  in  Nathanael's  soul  there  must 
have  been  the  same  pulsing  sense  of  new  discov- 
ery, the  same  sense  of  having  been  found  at  last 
by  some  one  who  knew  what  no  other  knew  about 
the  deeper  longing  of  his  heart,  and  who  in  the 
act  of  revealing  him  to  himself  had  held  out  the 
promise  also  of  fulfilling  the  aspirations  of 
his  soul. 

Now  there  is  one  truth  that  lies  right  on  the 
rface  of  these  two  sweet  incidents  in  the  early 
public  Hfe  of  our  Lord.  It  is,  that  every  man  of 
us  is  two  men,  that  every  man  is  made  up,  first, 
of  the  man  as  he  actually  is  on  the  surface,  as 
perhaps  he  appears  to  himself,  as  certainly  as  he 
appears  to  his  fellow  men,  and  the  deeper  man 
underneath,  as  he  may  be,  as  God  wants  him  to 
be,  as  perhaps  the  man  himself  longs  to  be,  as 
Jesus  Christ  the  Master  of  men  can  make  him. 
And  Jesus  sees  both  of  these  two  men.  We  read 
in  the  next  chapter  of  this  Gospel  that  He  need- 
eth  not  that  any  should  bear  witness  of  what  is 
in  a  man,  for  He  Himself  knows  all  that  is  in 
man,  all  that  there  is  of  actual  striving  with  sii 
and  failure,  all  that  there  is  of  delicate  desirq 
after  something  holier  and  stronger  that  thus  farj 
has  eluded  the  man.  He  knows  the  two  men' 
that  are  in  each  one  of  us,  and  He  discovers  thgrn 
to  Himself  and  to  us. 

Sometimes  He  finds  the  actual  man  without 


d 


MAKER    OF    STRONG    HEARTS      155 

better  than  the  ideal  man  within.  The  man  back 
of  the  curtain,  where  He  Himself  is  piercing  to 
the  realities  of  the  man,  is  basely  different  from 
the  man  as  he  appears  to  the  world  without. 
That  was  the  case  with  Judas.  Ju^as  passed ^o 
^friend  forthree^j^ars.  The  very  night  c  * 
betrayal  not  one  of  the  Apostles  could  guess  wh' 
the  traitor  was,  but  all  the  time  Jesus  knew  that 
he  was  the  one  who  was  to  betray  Him.  Back 
of  the  surface  of  fidelity  He  saw  the  treasonable 
heart.  The  r^^l  rnaji  in  Judas  as  Jesus  saw  him 
was  worse  than  the  outer  man  in  Judas  as  men 
saw  him. 

Sometimes  one  man  is  no  better  than  the  other, 
but  all  that  there  is  in  the  man  lies  on  the  surface 
of  his  life.  I  think  that  was  the  case  with  the 
rich  young  ruler  who  came  to  Jesus,  and  whom 
Jesus,  when  He  looked  at  him,  loved.  There 
was  nothing  more  to  the  man  than  showed  on  the 
surface.  The  moment  that  Jesus  put  His  finger 
on  the  core  of  the  man's  soul,  He  found  that 
what  was  back  of  the  man  was  no  more  than  was 
on  the  surface  of  the  man.  There  were  no  real 
longings  that  were  not  already  realised  in  his  life, 
so  far  as  he  was  truly  desirous  that  they  should 
be.  There  were  none  of  those  deep  dissatisfac- 
tions, those  earnest  discontents,  those  aspirations, 
hestitating  at  no  price,  after  something  beyond 
his  experience  that  lay  in  other  men  whom  Jesus 
touched.  And  the  moment  Jesus  found  his  shal-/ 
lowness,  that  there  was  nothing  to  the  man  ex- 


156     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

cept  what  showed,  and  discovered  this  to  the 
man  himself,  the  young  man  turned  away  from 
Christ. 

[^nrhere  are  other  men  in  whom  what  does  not 
I  appear  is  better  than  what  does,  in  whom  the 
hidden  ambition  of  the  Hfe,  unknown  of  men,  is  a 
holier  and  a  better  thing  than  the  life  that  thus 
far  men  have  seen.  That  was  the  case  with 
Simon.  There  he  stood,  the  object  lesson  of 
vacillation  and  pliability.  Deep  down  in  his  soul 
was  a  discontent  with  that  reputation,  a  desire 
after  a  solid,  steadfast  character;  and  Jesus, 
looking  into  him,  saw  that  the  surface  of  his 
life  covered  over  this  better  and  deeper  and 
richer  longing  within.  "  Thou  art  called  Simon," 
He  said  to  him ;  "  thy  name  shall  be  Rock." 

And  just  as  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  dis- 
covering men  when  He  was  here  He  is  discover- 
ing men  still.  He  is  here  now  with  each  of  us, 
scrutinising  alike  the  surface  and  the  core  of  our 
lives.  How  doe^  He  find  us?  Does  He  find 
no  more  back  of  the  surface  tTian  lies  upon  the 
surface?  There  are  many  men  who  are  clean, 
decent  fellows,  not  intending  to  commit  any 
crime,  with  their  wills  firmly  set  to  hold  aloof 
from  all  coarse  vice  and  sin,  men  who  pass  as 
good  fellows  in  the  world,  sociable,  more  or  less 
Christian  men,  and  that  is  all  that  can  be  said  of 
them.  There  is  nothing  back  of  the  life  that 
is  not  on  the  surface  of  it.  Does  Christ  find  any 
of  us  so,  with  no  longings  beyond  our  attain- 


MAKER    OF    STRONG    HEARTS      157 

ments,  with  no  desires  behind  that  which  Hes 
already  printed  plain  on  the  surface  of  our  lives? 

Maybe  He  finds  some  of  us  worse  than  we  . 
appear.  Outside  we  are  clean,  but  we  are  I 
tainted  within.  We  have  been  passing  as  ( 
leaders;  we  may  have  been  called  to  foremost 
positions  in  Christian  service;  we  may  be 
looked  upon  at  home  as  clean  and  Christian  men, 
and  down  at  the  core  of  our  lives  there  may  be 
something  despicable  and  defiling.  Maybe  we 
are  gentlemen  without  while  inside  we  are  rot- 
tenness and  dead  men's  bones,  outside  clean  and 
attractive  to  the  sight  of  men,  while  we  carry 
with  us  inferiority  and  vileness  of  spirit  with- 
in. As  Jesus,  with  those  eyes  of  flame  that 
pierce  the  very  joints  and  marrow,  scrutinises 
our  lives,  does  He  find  us  actually  worse  as  His 
eyes  see  us  than  we  show  ourselves  to  men,  or 
even  to  ourselves? 

Perhaps  He  finds  us  better  than  we  appear.! 
Perhaps  as  He  looks  upon  us  He  sees  more  in^ 
us  than  we  have  seen  even  in  ourselves  as  yet, 
and  far  more  in  us  than  our  friends  see.  Maybe 
they  are  calling  us  Simon.  Maybe  they  say: 
"  Yes,  I  know  that  fellow.  He  pretends  to  be  a 
Christian  man.  You  cannot  place  any  reliance 
on  his  word ;  there  is  no  solidity  in  his  character ; 
it  is  all  profession  and  no  reality  beneath  " ;  while 
Jesus  sees  within  a  deep  sickness  of  soul,  a  hun- 
gering and  thirsting  after  that  which  we  know 
better  than  any  other  man  that  we  are  not.    Pos- 


158     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

sibly,  looking  upon  us,  Christ  does  find  us  tar- 
nished without,  but  longing  to  be  cleansed  and 
free  within.  Some  time  ago  a  little  fellow 
from  a  Southern  college  said  to  me :  "I  am 
tempted  dreadfully  with  evil  thoughts,  and  when 
I  fear  that  I  am  going  to  be  tempted  and  I  fight 
against  them,  the  thoughts  come  all  the  more — 
just  at  the  time  when  I  hate  them  the  most  and 
most  desire  to  be  free  from  them.  The  very 
fact  that  I  strive  to  avert  their  coming  brings 
them  on,  and  I  fight  day  and  night  against  them. 
How  shall  I  free  myself  from  them  ? "  Now 
any  man  looking  on  this  boy's  life  without,  as  he 
looked  on  his  own  life  without,  saw  tarnish  and 
stain,  saw  the  soil  and  the  defilement  of  the  evil, 
but  only  Jesus  saw  beneath  the  passion  of  dis- 
gust at  it  all,  the  great  longing  desire  to  be  free, 
while  yet  the  desire  to  be  free  only  forged  the 
chains,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  more  strongly  upon 
him.  It  may  be  that  there  are  some  of  us  worse 
soiled  than  by  evil  thoughts  alone,  tarnished  with- 
out, yet  who,  as  Jesus  sees  us,  are  longing  for 
cleanliness  and  purity  within.  Possibly,  as  we 
look  on  the  outside  of  our  lives,  and  as  our  fel- 
lows look  upon  them,  they  are  coarse  and  selfish 
lives,  heavy  with  all  sorts  of  narrow  desires  and 
tastes  and  aspirations,  while  all  the  time  deep 
within  we  want  to  be  unselfish.  Our  self-con- 
sciousness is  felt  to  be  a  curse  by  us ;  that  em- 
phasis upon  our  own  will  and  our  own  ways  that 
shuts  us  out  from  richest  generosity  of  spirit  is 


MAKER    OF    STRONG    HEARTS      159' 

more  detestable  to  us  than  it  could  be  to  any  one 
else.  Maybe  we  are  very  conscious  of  our  want 
of  attainment,  but  full  of  eagerness  and  keen  de- 
sire to  get  hold  of  that  which  is  best  and  which 
we  most  truly  need.  Jesus,  looking  upon  us,  sees 
us  not  alone  full  of  the  failure  of  the  outer 
shortcomings,  but  beautiful  with  the  inner  desire 
to  be  perfect  and  unselfish  and  true. 

Perhaps  as  Jesus  looks  down  upon  us  He  sees, 
as  no  other  man  sees,  the  intense  and  bitter 
struggle  with  the  disposition  to  be  satisfied  with 
something  less  than  what  is  best.  Perhaps  as 
He  looks  upon  us  to-day,  just  as  He  looked  upon 
Simon  Peter  that  spring  day  by  the  shores  of 
the  sea  of  Galilee,  He  sees  us,  as  He  saw  him, 
weak,  pliable,  fickle,  unreliable  men  without  in 
our  relations  with  other  men,  possibly  in  our 
control  over  ourselves  ;  but  back  of  all  He  sees  the 
irrepressible  sickness  with  ourselves,  the  great 
desire  that  He  Who  said  to  Simon,  ''  I  know 
you,  you  shall  be  called  Rock,"  should  say  that 
same  thing  to  us  to-day :  "  I  know  you,  unreli- 
able, impulsive,  uncertain,  and  yet  eager  also  to 
be  firm  set  in  truth  and  righteousness.  You  shall 
become  what  you  desire." 

Now,  it  would  be  a  dreary  message  simply 
that  Jesus  sees  through  us,  that  we  cannot  play 
ofif  any  sham  on  Him,  that  He  knows  exactly 
what  is  hypocrisy  in  us  and  what  is  reality,  that 
His  eyes  can  never  be  stayed  on  the  outside  but 
will  drive  home  clear  to  the  inner  truth  of  our 


160     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

souls.  It  would  be  a  poor  message  if  we  could 
only  console  our  hearts  with  the  thought  that 
Tesus  Christy  cannot  be  cheated  in  us.  It  was  not 
enough  for  Him  that  day  on  the  shores  of  the  sea 
to  say,  ''  Simon,  I  know  you,  I  know  your  repu- 
tation on  this  coast,  I  know  your  character  thor- 
oughly " ;  He  went  on  to  hold  out  to  him  the 
promise  of  becoming  that  which  he  was  not,  of 
being  that  which  he  longed  to  be.  "  Thy  name 
has  been  Simon:  thou  shalt  be  called  Rock." 
And  Jesus  is  looking  down  upon  us  now,  not 
alone  clearly  distinguishing  just  the  sort  of  men 
we  are,  but  holding  out  to  us  also  His  promise 
to  make  us  the  kind  of  men  we  would  like  to  be, 
and  to  remould  us,  defaced,  blemished,  scarred, 
incomplete,  howsoever  we  may  be,  into  the  like- 
ness of  His  own  perfect  and  glorious  image. 
"  Thy  name  has  been  Simon :  thou  shalt  be  called 
Rock." 

There  is  something  wonderfully  attractive, 
something  that  speaks  home  to  the  conscious 
needs  of  our  hearts,  in  this  thought  of  the 
stability  and  power  of  Christ,  which  He  is  able 
to  impart  to  us,  and  to  make  a  part  of  our  own 
personal  character  and  hfe.  From  the  very 
beginning  Israel  loved  to  conceive  religion  so. 
They  were  ever  speaking  of  the  Lord  God  as 
their  everlasting  Rock  Who  could  not  be  moved, 
in  Whom  they  could  stand  impregnable  and  un- 
assailable. Moses  sang,  ''  He  is  the  rock.  His 
work  is  perfect:  ascribe  ye  greatness  unto  our 


MAKER    OF    STRONG    HEARTS      l6l 

God.  For  their  rock  is  not  as  our  rock,  even 
our  enemies  themselves  being  judges."  And 
there  was  David,  in  the  day  when  the  Lord  deHv- 
ered  him  out  of  the  hands  of  his  enemies  and  out 
of  the  hand  of  Saul,  singing,  "  The  Lord  is  my 
rock,  and  my  fortress,  and  my  deliverer;  my 
God,  my  strong  rock,  in  Him  will  I  trust;  my 
shield,  and  the  horn  of  my  salvation,  my  high 
tower."  And  there  is  yet  again  his  cry  in 
one  of  the  psalms  that  is  attributed  to  him: 
"  Hear  my  cry,  O  God ;  attend  unto  my  prayer. 
From  the  end  of  the  earth  will  I  call  unto  Thee, 
when  my  heart  is  overwhelmed:  lead  me  to  the 
rock  that  is  higher  than  L  For  Thou  hast  been 
a  refuge  for  me,  and  a  strong  tower  from  the 
enemy."  A  poor  people  hunted  out  of  their 
own  land,  driven  to  and  fro  over  the  surface  of 
the  earth,  who  found  no  shade  of  trees,  but  who 
dwelt  only  under  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in 
a  weary  land,  Israel  loves  to  lean  still  on  the 
Lord  God  its  rock.  An  old  Jewish  legend  is 
said  to  be  referred  to  in  Paul's  First  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians,  where  we  are  told  tliat  all 
through  the  wilderness  journeys  the  rock  that 
Moses  smote  in  the  wilderness  followed  Israel, 
and  they  drank  of  that  rock.  And  that  rock, 
Paul  says,  was  Christ.  And  the  very  core  of  all 
religion  lies  in  this,  the  binding  back  of  life  into 
its  solid  moorings  in  God.  Religion  is  the  tak- 
ing of  that  which  is  adrift,  of  that  which  is  out 
chartless  and  masterless,  and  bringing  it  home  to 


162     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

its  just  relations  in  the  impregnable  and  endur- 
ing God. 

Jesus  stands  waiting  to  set  our  feet  in  rock; 
and  it  does  not  matter  where  we  go,  we  shall 
need  each  one  of  us  to  have  Him  do  in  us  this 
mighty  ministry.  Some  of  us  may  be  going  into 
business  life.  We  shall  need  nothing  more  as  we 
go  there  than  that  He  should  set  our  feet  se- 
curely in  an  immovable  righteousness  and  steadi- 
ness of  character.  Mr.  Richard  Croker  is  not 
an  admirable  man,  but  there  are  two  things 
that  are  said  to  his  credit.  One  is  that 
he  speaks  his  mind  without  fear,  and  the 
other  is  that  he  keeps  his  word  without  false- 
hood. Some  time  ago  the  Evening  Telegram 
printed  an  interview  with  him,  in  which  he  was 
reported  to  have  said :  "  I  don't  propose  to  pose 
as  an  adviser  to  the  young  men  of  this  city,  but 
speaking  solely  from  my  personal  observation,  I 
should  say  that  all  that  is  necessary  for  the  truly 
ambitious  young  man  to  do  is  to  possess  himself 
of  those  principles  which  go  to  make  up  the  prac- 
tical business  man,  and  those  are,  in  my  judg- 
ment, first  of  all,  integrity,  pluck,  perseverance 
and  sobriety."  The  same  truth  was  better  said 
by  a  better  man  in  "  Under  the  Old  Elm." 

"The  longer  on  this  earth  we  live, 
And  weigh  the  various  qualities  of  men, 

Seeing  how  most  are  fugitive 
Or  fitful  gifts  at  best  of  now  and  then, 
Wind-wavered,  corpse-lights,  daughters  of  the  fen, 


MAKER    OF    STRONG    HEARTS      163 

The  more  we  feel  the  high,  stern-featured  beauty 

Of  plain  devotedness  to  duty. 
Steadfast  and  still;  not  fed  with  mortal  praise: 

But  finding  amplest  recompense 

For  life's  ungarlanded  expense 
In  work  done  squarely  and  unwasted  days." 

If  we  are  going  out  into  business  life,  let  Jesus 
speak  to  us  His  message  of  power  and  turn  us 
from  pliable  Simon  into  enduring  Rock,  making 
us  rigid  with  His  righteousness. 

Every  one  of  us,  whatever  his  or  her  particu- 
lar work  is  to  be,  must  expect  to  be  tried  by  seven 
times  hotter  temptations  than  have  ever  tried 
us  before.  Every  fresh  privilege  is  only  a  fitting 
of  men  for  fresh  temptation.  And  we  can  be 
sure  as  we  go  out  with  larger  powers  to  fight 
with  that  which  is  vicious  and  evil,  that  we  shall 
have  more  of  it  to  struggle  against.  Tempta- 
tions will  come  to  us  with  fresh  power.  The 
adversary  in  yet  more  insidious  ways  will  creep 
subtly  in  and  try  us  at  some  new  place. 
We  shall  need  Christ  to  stand  by  us  and 
put  rock  i^  us,  need  Christ  to  stand  by  us  and 
make  us  steadfast  to  fight  against  him  who  fights 
against  us,  to  clothe  ourselves  with  all  the 
armour  of  God  aijd  then  to  stand,  and  having 
done  all,  to  stand  still,  until  at  last,  having  over- 
come, we  sit  down  by  Christ  upon  His  throne,  as 
He  overcame  and  was  set  ddwn  by  the  Father 
upon  His  throne. 

Some  may  have  to  stand  all  alone  in  their  col- 


164     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

leges  or  circles  of  companions.  It  is  an  awful 
thing  to  try  and  pull  other  men  up  to  a  higher 
spiritual  level.  There  is  no  other  work  in  this 
world  that  drains  men  so,  that  tears  the  very  soul 
as  the  attempt  to  make  plain  to  other  men  some 
larger  spiritual  vision  and  to  turn  them  to  its 
obedience.  It  would  be  a  far  easier  thing  to  go 
out  and  plough.  Many  will  have  to  stand  alone 
in  this  way.  May  Jesus,  who  Himself  stood, 
help  us  to  stand  and  breathe  into  us  the  very  dis- 
position of  stone.  In  all  of  our  service  of  Christ, 
wherever  we  go  now,  or  whatever  we  are  to  do, 
we  need  to  be  given,  each  one  of  us,  more  of 
that  new  character  which  came  to  Simon  when 
Jesus  found  him  and  gave  him  his  new  name. 

One  of  the  wonderful  things  about  our  Lord 
Himself  was  the  way  He  stood  against  everything 
that  assailed  Him  whether  from  within  or  from 
without,  and  counted  nothing  too  great  a  sacrifice 
for  His  ministry  and  His  Father's  love,  the  way 
at  last,  when  all  turned  against  Him,  when  every 
disciple  fled,  when  even  John  turned  and  left  with 
the  rest.  He  remained  unmoved,  immovable. 
Some  of  you  will  recall  the  old  lines  of  Irving 
Brown  in  the  Albany  Law  Journal  back  of  which 
as  we  read  them  rises  the  vision  of  the  enduring 
and  the  immovable  Christ,  in  which  he  con- 
trasted the  lions  of  Trafalgar  and  Lucerne. 

"  The  drowsy  lions  of  Trafalgar  lie, 
With  pride  and  conquest  sated, 
Round  about  the  victor's  column. 


MAKER    OF    STRONG    HEARTS      165 

Travellers  pass  by  without  a  glance 

And  oftener  without  a  thought  of  all  the  glory  buried 

there 
That  makes  the  Lion  Island's  fame  so  fair. 

'*  Thou  solitary  lion  of  Lucerne 
Defeated,  gasping  on  an  alien  shield, 
To  thee  the  strangers'  steps  in  fondness  turn, 
Thou  dying  majesty. 

To  thee  we  yield  the  tribute  due  to  loyalty  and  love, 
Unshaken  as  the  solid  cliff  above." 

So  may  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Who  so  stood 
that  all  the  powers  of  hell  could  not  shake  Him 
in  His  standing,  give  us  of  His  own  strength  to 
stand  with  Him. 

I  stood  some  years  ago  outside  the  wall  of 
the  city  of  Seoul,  in  Korea,  on  the  banks  of  the 
river  Han,  and  I  thought  of  that  great  scene 
thirty  years  before,  when  the  Tai  Won  Kun,  who 
for  nearly  a  generation  was  the  baleful  curse 
of  that  land,  ordered  the  death  of  all  the  Catholic 
Christians  of  Korea,  and  they  were  brought 
down,  thousands  in  number,  to  the  shores  of  the 
Han.  The  priests  and  the  bishops  had  arrows 
thrust  through  the  lobes  of  their  ears  and  the 
muscles  of  their  chests,  and  were  obliged  to  run 
up  and  down  the  sandy  bank  of  the  Han  until 
they  fell  exhausted,  and  one  by  one  the  multitude 
of  Koreans,  women,  men,  and  little  children, 
poor,  simple  people,  deemed  by  the  Japanese  and 
Chinese  alike  as  cast  off  In  the  world  and  feeble, 
knelt  down,  and  for  their  Master,  Jesus  Christ, 


166     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

were  willing  to  die,  and  did  die,  until  the  water 
of  the  Han  ran  red  to  the  Yellow  Sea.  That 
scene  was  later  brought  back  by  a  letter  from 
a  missionary  in  the  city  of  Ning-po  in  China, 
describing  a  meeting  of  the  Synod  of  southern 
China,  about  the  time  of  the  Boxer  storm,  in 
which  in  a  farewell  address  the  oldest  minister 
in  the  Synod  rose  and  spoke  to  his  friends  of  the 
fiery  trials  which  he  felt  were  coming  upon  all 
who  confessed  Jesus  Christ  in  China.  He  ad- 
vised the  other  pastors  to  prepare  their  people 
by  reading  to  them  from  the  Bible  the  passages 
about  the  martyrs  of  the  early  Church,  and  to 
tell  them  the  stories  of  the  Christian  Church 
through  all  the  ages,  that  they  might  be  made 
ready  to  stand  immovable,  steadfast,  and  true, 
in  the  day  of  fire  and  of  sword. 

Feeble  as  dust,  fickle,  changeable,  unreliable 
Simons,  all  of  us,  needing  each  of  us  to  have 
given  to  him  the  strength  which  Christ  possesses, 
once  again,  as  in  the  days  of  old  by  Tiberias,  the 
Master  stands  offering  to  change  every  man 
from  Simon  to  Peter,  to  take  us  just  as  we  are, 
no  matter  how  unsatisfactory,  vacillating,  un- 
true, and  make  us  by  His  grace.  Rock,  rigid 
Rock. 


IX 

THE  MASTER'S   WORK  FOR   HIS  FOL- 
LOWERS 

IN  the  beginning  of  the  great  prayer  of  our 
Lord  which  is  recorded  in  the  seventeenth 
chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  occurs  this 
sentence :  "  I  have  glorified  Thee  on  the  earth ; 
I  have  finished  the  work  which  Thou  gavest  Me 
to  do." 

Surely  none  but  the  lips  of  Christ  would  have 
dared  to  utter  these  words.  What  is  peculiar 
and  personal  in  them,  however,  is  not  the  idea 
that  our  Master  had  a  work  given  Him  by  God 
to  do.  I  think  we  are  at  times  disposed  to  think 
that  that  was  the  distinctive  and  peculiar  thing 
in  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  unmistakably  it  was  an 
emphatic  thing.  How  many  times  He  Himself 
refers  to  it !  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of 
Him  that  sent  Me,  and  to  finish  His  work." 
"  I  came  not  to  do  Mine  own  will,  but  the  will 
of  Him  that  sent  Me."  ''He  that  sent  Me  is 
with  Me;  He  hath  not  left  Me  alone,  for  I  do 
always  those  things  that  please  Him." 

Because  Jesus  was  often  insisting  upon  this 
and  because  so  manifestly  what  Jesus  was  about 
in  this  world  was  the  work  of  God,  we  are  some- 

16T 


168     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

times  led  to  think  that  His  life  evidenced  a 
working  of  God  which  we  may  not  be  privileged 
to  have  in  our  lives,  and  we  often  draw  the  line 
of  distinction  between  our  Lord  and  ourselves 
here,  admitting  that  God  had  given  to  Him  a 
great  work  to  do  in  this  world  and  admitting 
sadly  that  we  do  not  believe  that  He  can  or 
intends  to  give  us  any  such  work.  But  surely 
instead  of  being  most  remote  from  us  at  this 
point,  it  is  precisely  here  that  Jesus  Himself 
fully  reveals  the  real  and  essential  significance 
of  our  Hfe;  instead  of  setting  Himself  off 
from  all  other  men  in  declaring  that  He  had  a 
work  given  Him  of  God  to  do,  He  was  ranging 
Himself  in  this  with  all  His  brethren.  We  as 
truly  as  He  have  each  one  of  us  a  specific  God- 
assigned  work  in  the  world. 

Jesus  often  touches  upon  this  truth  in  His 
parables.  He  tells  us  that  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  like  unto  a  householder  who  went  off 
into  a  far  country,  leaving  to  each  of  his  servants 
his  own  work.  And  He  makes  it  plain  that  this 
is  not  alone  the  work  of  each  servant  for  himself, 
but  God's  work  for  each  servant.  The  work 
which  we  are  trying  to  do  in  this  world  is  our 
work  surely  enough,  but  it  is  not  our  work  for 
ourselves  in  any  such  true  sense  as  it  is  God's 
work  for  us,  and  we  get  the  chief  comfort  and 
contentment  out  of  our  lives  from  that  convic- 
tion. The  truest  joy  which  any  man  can  find 
in  his  life  is  in  perceiving  in  it  some  unfolding 


WORK    FOR    HIS    FOLLOWERS      169 

of  God's  purpose  and  in  recognising  in  the  thing 
that  he  is  trying  to  do  not  a  work  that  he  has 
picked  up  at  random  here,  but  a  particular  piece 
of  work  set  for  him,  set  for  him  long  before  he 
himself  ever  came  into  this  world,  by  the  loving 
purpose  of  his  Father. 

Conceive  for  a  moment  the  irresistible  strength 
and  power  of  such  a  conception  of  life  as  this. 
Not  every  man  can  do  everything  that  he  will, 
but  every  man  can  do  everything  that  God  wills 
that  he  should  do,  and  neither  life  nor  death, 
principalities  nor  powers,  things  present  nor 
things  to  come,  can  prevent  any  man  from  doing 
in  this  world  the  work  which  God  wants  him 
to  do  if  the  man  will  take  his  work  from  the 
hands  of  God  and  do  it. 

This  is  no  narrow  conception  of  life.  To  hold 
this  view  of  life  does  not  require  a  man  to  nar- 
row his  thought  of  the  things  allowable  to  him 
within  the  Hmits  of  a  certain  few  occupations 
and  duties.  John  Tauler  was  telling  the  truth 
when,  seven  hundred  years  ago,  he  wrote: 

"  Every  art  or  work,  however  unimportant  it 
may  seem,  is  a  gift  of  God;  and  all  these  gifts 
are  bestowed  by  the  Holy  Ghost  for  the  profit 
and  welfare  of  men.  Let  us  begin  with  the  low- 
est. One  can  spin,  another  can  make  shoes,  and 
some  have  great  aptness  for  all  sorts  of  outward 
arts.  These  are  all  gifts  proceeding  from  the 
Spirit  of  God.  H  I  were  not  a  priest,  but  were 
living  as  a  layman,  I  should  take  it  as  a  great 


170     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

favour  that  I  knew  how  to  make  shoes,  and 
should  try  to  make  them  better  than  any  one  else, 
and  should  gladly  earn  my  bread  by  the  labour 
of  my  hands.  There  is  no  work  so  small,  no  art 
so  mean,  but  it  all  comes  from  God  and  is  a 
special  gift  of  His.  Thus  let  each  do  that  which 
another  cannot  do  so  well,  and  for  love,  return- 
ing gift  for  gift." 

It  was  the  same  perception  of  a  divine  truth 
that  led  his  friends  to  inscribe  on  the  tombstone 
of  David  Golf  in  Scotland :  "  David  Golf,  Shoe- 
maker by  the  grace  of  God."  Any  work  which 
God  assigns  to  a  man  is  worthy  work  for  that 
man  to  do,  and  if  it  be  very  humble  and  secular 
as  men  regard  it,  it  is  yet  the  most  spiritual  and 
divine  work  that  the  man  can  take  up,  if  God 
gave  it  to  him. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  conception  of  life  does 
not  tolerate  any  maudlin  breadth.  There  are 
young  men  in  our  colleges  who  are  answering 
the  missionary  call  by  saying  that  they  expect 
to  stay  at  home  and  earn  money  for  missions. 
There  is  not  a  verse  in  the  Bible  that  justifies  a 
man  in  believing  that  God  has  ever  called  or  ever 
will  call  a  man  primarily  to  make  money,  and  I 
have  never  been  able  to  persuade  myself  from 
studying  the  character  of  God  that  He  would  do 
such  a  thing  as  that.  There  are  men  whom  God 
calls  to  some  living  spiritual  service  who  earn 
money  by  the  way,  and  they  are  bound  to  admin- 
ister that  money  as  a  trust ;  but  I  do  not  believe 


WORK    FOR    HIS    FOLLOWERS      171 

that  God  is  opening  before  any  man,  or  ever  has 
opened  before  any  man,  the  door  to  escape  from 
a  Hving  spiritual  service  under  the  pretext  that 
he  is  to  earn  money  that  the  spiritual  service  of 
other  men  many  be  maintained.  William  Carey 
said  that  he  cobbled  shoes  to  pay  expenses,  and 
that  is  all  that  cobbling  shoes  or  stock-broking  or 
keeping  a  bank  is  good  for,  either  to  pay  ex- 
penses or  to  serve  men.  The  real  purpose  of  a 
man's  life  is  to  pay  expenses  In  these  ways  and 
to  use  himself,  use  himself  utterly  in  the  living 
work  of  God.  It  is  a  fine  thing  that  God  makes 
work  His  gift  and  not  money  and  not  fame,  nor 
this  thing  nor  that  thing,  but  just  living  work, 
and  that  every  day  He  gives  to  each  man  of  us  a 
work  for  that  day  and  offers  to  us  the  joy  of 
conceiving  it  as  a  personal  partnership  with.. 
Himself.     "  To  every  man  his  work." 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  a  possible  thing  for 
every  man  to  discover  just  what  the  work  of  God 
for  him  in  this  world  is.  There  is  not  one  man 
who  cannot  discover  the  precise  work  which  God 
has  for  him  to  do.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  God 
is  more  anxious  that  we  should  discover  that 
work  than  we  are  to  discover  it.  We  often  tor- 
ture ourselves  with  the  contrary  thought,  sup- 
posing that  we  are  anxious  beyond  God  to  get 
into  just  our  right  place  in  this  world,  whereas, 
all  the  time,  the  living  God  Himself,  to  Whom 
our  life  is  of  more  importance  than  it  is  to  us, 
has   been   far  more   anxious  to   guide   us   into 


172     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

that  precise  place  which  He  has  made  for  us 
than  we  are  to  be  guided. 

Not  only  can  each  of  us  find  what  the  work 
of  God  for  us  in  this  world  is,  but  each  of  us 
must  find  that  work.  Life  is  a  wasted  thing, 
Hfe  is  missing  its  real  purpose  here  in  the  world, 
life  is  sin — which  simply  is  missing  the  purpose 
— until  we  have  discovered  for  ourselves  what 
God's  work  and  will  for  us  may  be. 

I.  How  can  we  discover  the  work  of  God 
for  us  in  the  world?  First  of  all,  God  does  not 
propose  to  reveal  it  to  us  by  any  ecstatic  emo- 
tion or  by  any  mechanical  external  pressure. 
God  has  guided  men  in  these  ways ;  but  no  man 
has  any  right  to  demand  that  God  should  guide 
him  so.  When  God  works  within  my  heart,  will 
not  His  workings  be  so  perfect  that  they  will 
seem  to  be  the  motions  of  my  own  heart?  God 
will  not  coerce  our  spirits ;  He  will  not  in  any 
objective  way  throttle  our  liberties.  Whatever 
guidance  we  get  from  God  will  be  in  the  way  of 
the  movings  of  the  Spirit  of  God  along  the  chan- 
nels of  the  orderly  activities  of  our  own  life. 

n.  In  the  second  place,  as  Horace  Bushnell 
points  out  in  his  great  sermon,  "  Every  Man's 
Life  a  Plan  of  God,"  there  are  certain  things 
that  must  be  excluded.  We  must  exclude,  first 
of  all,  the  desire  to  be  singular.  The  man  who 
is  ambitious  for  some  peculiar  thing,  who  is 
tying  God  down  to  the  revelation  of  some  indi- 
vidual and  singular  project  for  himself,  is  pre- 


WORK    FOR    HIS    FOLLOWERS      173 

venting  that  divine  leading  which  is  only  given 
to  the  soul  that  is  pliable  in  His  hand. 

Second,  v^e  must  exclude  the  copying  of  any 
other  man's  life.  I  look  at  my  friend  and  his 
life  so  rich  in  all  strengths  and  blessings,  so  set 
in  all  rigidity  of  truthfulness,  so  strong  and 
clean  in  all  its  human  ministries,  and  I  v^ant  to 
pattern  my  life  after  his.  The  rich  God  is  too 
rich  to  give  me  the  cast-off  clothes  of  another 
man's  life.  He  proposes  for  me  an  original  and 
vital  project  of  my  own,  and  He  does  not  expect 
me  as  I  seek  His  will  for  myself  to  ape  the  life 
of  any  other  man. 

Thirdly,  we  must  exclude  insistence  upon 
knowing  the  whole  thing  at  the  beginning.  That 
was  the  difficulty  of  some  of  the  disciples  on  the 
last  night.  "  Lord,"  said  one  of  them  to  Him, 
"  we  know  not  whither  Thou  goest ;  how  can  we 
know  the  way  ?  "  Men  are  perpetually  making 
that  mistake,  thinking  that  unless  they  can  see 
the  goal  they  cannot  see  the  road  thither.  Now, 
the  living  God  cannot  reveal  to  any  man  his 
whole  life.  We  have  as  yet  no  intellectual  con- 
ceptions in  which  to  phrase  our  future  life  to 
ourselves.  If  Christ  should  unveil  it  before  us 
it  would  be  to  us  a  strange  and  unintelligible 
thing.  We  must  be  content  to  take  God's  guid- 
ance of  our  lives  step  by  step  as  we  are  able  to 
bear  it. 

III.  Now,  with  these  warnings,  in  the  third 
place,  consider^  first  of  all,  the  character  of  God. 


174     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

That  makes  it  impossible  for  any  man  to  be  a 
saloon  keeper  or  go  into  the  business  of  keeping 
a  dive.  God  could  not  approve  it,  and  whatever 
is  inconsistent  with  the  character  of  God,  it  is 
not  possible  for  any  Christian  man  to  do.  Now 
that  may  seem  like  a  very  obvious  suggestion, 
but  apply  it  and  see  what  a  great  swath  it  cuts 
through  life.  How  many  things  that  perhaps 
we  have  been  cherishing  as  possible  become  in- 
stantly impossible  the  moment  we  sit  down  to 
estimate  them  again  in  the  light  of  what  we 
believe  to  be  the  character  of  God! 

Let  us  consider,  in  the  second  place,  our  own 
relation  to  God,  as  men  who  belong  to  Him,  who 
have  no  right  to  set  ourselves  up  in  the  world 
in  business  independently  of  God,  who  are  here, 
as  His  workmanship,  our  whole  Hfe  depending 
upon  Him.  Whatever  we  do  in  life  must  be 
something  that  recognises  our  utter  dependence 
upon  God. 

Let  us  take  account,  thirdly,  of  our  own  moral 
judgments.  Many  a  man  makes  his  life  decision 
in  the  face  of  the  light  that  shines  in  his  own 
moral  life.  He  sins;  he  knows  he  sins.  When 
a  man  deliberately  follows  some  selfish  end  when 
there  is  opened  up  before  him  an  unselfish  ser- 
vice he  is  sinning,  and  he  knows  that  he  is  sin- 
ning against  his  own  moral  judgment.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  man  may  unconsciously  walk  into 
sin  with  the  approval  of  his  moral  judgment. 
Not  everything  that  my  moral  judgment  tells 


WORK    FOR    HIS    FOLLOWERS      175 

me  is  right,  is  right.  The  thugs  committed  mur- 
der with  the  most  rehgious  motives ;  are  they 
therefore  justified  in  their  course?  The  fact  that 
a  man's  moral  judgment  allows  him  to  do  a  thing 
does  not  justify  him  in  doing  it.  While  a  man 
must  consult  his  moral  judgment  and  do  nothing 
that  his  moral  judgment  condemns,  it  is  not 
enough  for  any  man  to  say  that  his  moral  judg- 
ment approves.     Is  his  moral  judgment  right? 

In  the  fourth  place,  he  must  consult,  there- 
fore, that  one  corrective  of  a  man's  moral  judg- 
ment— the  law  of  God  as  revealed  in  the  Word 
of  God.  It  was  given  us  for  the  purpose  of 
setting  erroneous  moral  judgments  right  and  for 
establishing  those  standards  of  life  which  are 
to  be  the  norm  of  our  moral  judgment. 

In  the  fifth  place,  let  each  of  us  consult  his 
own  friends.  They  know  us.  We  need  to  con- 
sult our  friends,  although  we  may  disregard 
their  advice.  Many  times  men  are  called  to  do 
this ;  and  many  are  first  born  into  the  real  sense 
of  what  it  is  to  be  a  man  by  refusing  to  follow 
the  advice  of  friends.  Not  every  father's  advice 
even  is  infallible.  And  many  a  time  a  man  will 
consult  his  friends  and  follow  their  advice,  and 
many  a  time  also  he  will  consult  his  friends  and 
not  follow  their  advice. 

He  must  consult  also  not  alone  his  friends,  but 
that  greatest  Friend  of  all  Who  is  perpetually 
guiding  man's  life  by  the  providences  that  sur- 
round it  and  are  shaping  it.     Who  brought  you 


176     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

here  ?  God.  Who  forced  on  your  mind  the  con- 
sideration of  a  certain  Hne  of  Hfe  work?  God. 
You  may  say  the  considerations  that  are  pressed 
on  you  to  take  up  that  Hfe  work  are  considera- 
tions that  would  force  every  man  into  it.  No, 
they  are  not,  and  you  know  that  that  is  no  honest 
reason;  for  God  brought  you  to  face  those  con- 
siderations ;  He  did  not  bring  other  men  to  face 
those  considerations.  I  may  stand  on  the  shore 
of  a  river  where  there  are  drowning  souls,  and 
I  ma}^  say  that  no  obligation  rests  on  me  to  save 
those  drowning  souls  that  does  not  rest  also  on 
every  man,  but  I  know  that  I  am  playing  with 
the  truth  in  saying  this ;  not  every  man  is  stand- 
ing on  the  bank  of  the  river,  and  I  am.  Not 
every  man  is  looking  out  on  the  world  of  need 
to-day ;  you  are,  and  you  are  looking  out  upon  it 
because  God  brought  you  face  to  face  with  it, 
and  because  there  is  a  loving  providence  in  your 
life  guiding  and  directing  you  toward  its  need. 
This  is  a  thing  to  be  weighed  now  by  you  or  it 
may  be  weighed  some  day  against  you. 

Last  of  all,  it  is  necessary  for  each  of  us,  hav- 
ing guarded  ourselves  against  these  dangers  and 
having  followed  these  various  courses  of  help, 
to  go  straight  to  God  with  the  matter  and  to 
trust  Him  to  guide  us,  and  then  walk  straight 
forward  with  a  quiet  heart,  certain  that  He  has 
guided  us  as  we  have  asked  Him  that  He  should. 
God  has  a  work  for  each  of  us  to  do,  a  partic- 
ular individual  work  that  will  never  be  done  in 


WORK    FOR    HIS    FOLLOWERS      177 

this  world  unless  he  to  whom  it  is  assigned  does 
it,  and  He  has  given  us  the  means  of  discover- 
ing that  particular  work  of  His  for  us. 

IV.  In  the  fourth  place,  this  is  the  thing  that 
the  man  is  to  do.  "  The  work,"  says  Jesus, 
*'  which  Thou  hast  given  Me  to  do/'  And  you 
know  how  Jesus  did  it.  His  disciples  came  back 
and  they  marvelled  as  they  saw  Him  sitting  by 
Jacob's  well  talking  with  a  woman,  and  they 
said,  "  Hath  any  man  brought  Him  aught  to 
eat  ?  "  And  Jesus  said,  ''  My  meat  is  to  do  the 
will  of  Him  that  sent  Me,  and  to  finish  His 
work."  And  you  know  how  He  poured  His 
life  into  the  doing  of  that  will  so  that,  as  His 
disciples  said,  the  zeal  of  His  Father's  house  ate 
Him  up.  He  even  took  no  leisure  so  much  as 
to  eat.  Every  true  life  that  has  walked  with 
Him  and  has  learned  the  secret  of  His  life  has 
done  thus  the  work  that  God  has  given  it  to  do. 

All  the  great  things  that  have  ever  been  accom- 
plished in  this  world  have  been  accomplished  by 
men  who  had  a  will  to  work.  Take  the  life  of 
Richard  Knill.  Where  was  the  secret  of  that? 
In  the  advice  that  Venning,  the  philanthropist, 
gave  him :  "  Knill,  labour  for  Jesus  Christ  as 
long  as  you  have  a  drop  of  blood  in  your 
body."  Take  the  life  of  T.  H.  Huxley.  What 
was  the  secret  of  it?  The  motto  of  his  Hfe: 
"  Like  the  stars,  without  haste,  without  rest." 
Take  the  life  of  Samuel  Bowles.  Friends  said  ^ 
to   him,    "  Mr.    Bowles,   you   are   ruining   your  / 


178     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

health  with  overwork."  "  I  have  the  Hnes 
drawn,"  was  his  reply,  "  and  the  current  flowing, 
and  by  throwing  my  weight  here  now  I  can 
count  for  something.  If  I  make  a  long  break  or 
'  parenthesis  to  get  strong  I  shall  lose  my  oppor- 
tunity. No  man  is  living  a  life  worth  living 
unless  he  is  willing,  if  need  be,  to  die  for  some- 
\      body  or  something." 

And  so  St.  Paul  in  his  talk  with  the  Ephesian 
elders  at  Miletus :  *'  I  count  not  my  life  as  dear 
unto  myself,  so  that  I  may  finish  my  course  with 
joy  and  the  ministry  which  I  have  received  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  to  testify  the  Gospel  of 
the  grace  of  God."  I  like  the  missionary  enter- 
prise on  this  account;  because  it  sets  before  us 
a  definite  divine  work  in  the  world  to  do  and 
gives  a  man  a  chance  to  spend  his  life  in  doing 
it.  Yes,  it  gives  him  a  chance,  if  he  wants  it,  to 
lay  down  his  life  in  doing  it.  And,  after  all, 
what  was  life  given  to  men  for?  Many  of  us 
are  content  to  make  a  living,  live  a  comfortable, 
quiet,  decent  life,  and  then  at  the  end  turn  over 
and  die;  and  that  will  be  the  end  of  it  all — no 
great  thrilling  passion  in  it,  no  great  divine  vi- 
sions overcoming  it  and  overpowering  it,  no 
great  sympathy  with  Jesus  Christ  in  His  work 
of  sacrifice  and  of  service  in  the  world.  But  was 
life  given  men  to  nurse  in  velvet  and  to  keep 
as  long  as  they  could?  Life  was  given  to  men 
to  burn  up,  to  spend  and  to  spend  out  clear  to 
the  end.     Some  Christians  do  not  realise  this, 


WORK    FOR    HIS    FOLLOWERS      179 

but  to  others  the  view  of  the  Saviour  regarding 
His  own  priceless  Hfe  has  been  given,  and  they 
see  that  Hfe  is  a  trust  to  be  used,  not  a  treasure 
to  be  hoarded.  As  a  mother  wrote  of  the  death 
of  a  daughter  killed  during  the  Boxer  troubles 
in  China: 

"  The  bitterest  part  of  our  trial  was  the  faith- 
less reproaches  of  fellow  Christians  because  of 
what  they  called  the  waste  of  such  valuable  lives. 
My  soul  was  literally  torn  with  anguish  by  such 
words.  They  seemed  to  reflect  dishonour  on  our 
Lord,  and  my  constant  prayer  is  that  He  may 
vindicate  Himself  and  His  servants,  so  that  no 
one  can  doubt  that  all  has  been  according  to  His 
wise  purpose. 

"  Personally,  we  have  gone  through  the  Val- 
ley of  the  Shadow — but  He  has  been  with  us, 
and  the  days  of  our  deepest  sorrow  have  been  the 
days  of  His  greatest  nearness.  We  have  been 
like  distressed  children  clinging  close  to  the 
strong  and  loving  Father's  side,  and  it  has  been 
sweet  to  be  made  so  conscious  of  His  protection. 
The  earthward  side  of  my  dear  one's  death  is 
very  dark,  mysterious;  but  I  thank  God  for  the 
glory  of  the  heavenward  side.  I  thank  Him,  too, 
that  the  suffering  was  at  longest  measured  by 
hours,  but  the  glory  is  for  eternity.  Oh,  what  a 
Master  we  serve;  what  an  inheritance  He  has 
purchased  for  us  I  " 

Many  a  man  who  is  moving  around  with  grey 
hair,  having  lived  out  a  long  term    of    years, 


180     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

has  wasted  his  Hfe;  but  those  missionary- 
martyrs  had  not  wasted  theirs  when  they  laid 
them  down  there,  in  their  fresh  beauty,  in  north- 
ern China.  Jesus  Christ  did  not  waste  His  Hfe 
when  He  died  at  the  age  of  thirty-three  upon  a 
cross  when  He  might  have  hved  on,  if  He  had 
wanted  to,  ten,  twenty,  thirty,  forty  years  more. 
He  conceived  that  hfe  was  given  to  Him  to 
spend,  and  He  spent  it  in  doing  the  work  that 
His  Father  had  given  Him  to  do. 

In  Leonard  Huxley's  life  of  his  father  you 
will  find  a  letter  in  which  Huxley  speaks  of  the 
death  of  Chinese  Gordon  at  Khartoum  in  the 
Soudan.  Chinese  Gordon  was  the  man  whom 
above  all  other  men,  unless  it  was  Darwin,  Hux- 
ley admired,  deeming  him  the  most  refreshing 
personality  of  that  generation,  and  he  is  speaking 
in  this  letter  to  Sir  John  Donnelly  of  Gordon's 
strange  death  in  the  Soudan ;  and  he  says :  "  I 
imagine  that  the  manner  of  his  death  was  not 
unwelcome  to  himself.  Better  wear  out  than 
rust  out,  and  better  break  than  wear  out."  For 
what  was  life  given  to  men  for  except  to  fling 
it  with  all  the  energy  and  power  that  it  holds 
against  sin  and  for  the  thing  that  is  right  and 
good  and  holy  in  the  world?  Each  of  us  has  a 
work  to  do,  and  must  do  that  work  while  life 
lasts,  as  Jesus  Christ  had  a  work  to  do  and 
made  it  His  meat  and  His  drink  to  do  it  and  to 
bring  it  to  a  finished  end. 

y.     I  said  at  the  beginning  that  no  lips  but 


WORK    FOR    HIS    FOLLOWERS      181 

our  Lord's  would  ever  have  dared  to  speak  those 
words,  and  I  said  also  that  what  was  peculiar 
and  individual  in  them  was  not  the  fact  that 
Jesus  had  a  work  given  Him  of  God  to  do.  I 
would  say  now  that  the  thing  that  was  distinc- 
tive and  pecuHar  was  the  fact  that  Jesus  was  able 
to  say,  "  I  have  finished  My  work."  Nobody 
else  in  this  world  ever  said  that.  Each  one  of 
us  looks  at  his  work  as  he  has  done  it  up  to  this 
day.  If  he  should  die  to-day  much  of  it  would 
have  to  be  undone,  and  the  man  who  tried  to 
pick  it  up  would  be  torn  with  the  splinters  that 
are  sticking  out  from  it.  It  is  no  finished,  pol- 
ished piece  of  work  as  Christ's  was.  Some  of 
you  may  have  seen  in  one  of  the  marine  journals 
a  little  while  ago  an  interview  with  President 
Hill  of  the  Great  Northern,  in  which  he  spoke  of 
men's  experience  in  taking  hold  of  the  life  work 
of  other  men  who  had  gone  before  them,  of  the 
necessity  that  they  had  been  put  to  of  undoing 
much  of  it,  of  the  ambition  which  he  felt  to  do  a 
man's  work  in  such  a  way  that  when  he  let  it 
go  nobody  would  need  to  undo  any  of  it.  And 
beyond  that,  even  if  a  man  is  able  to  leave  his 
work  so  that  other  men  can  take  it  up  and  find 
no  imperfection  in  it,  how  much  is  there  yet  of 
shortcoming  in  it  all,  things  we  wanted  to  do 
that  we  never  did.  Leonard  Huxley  writes  of  his 
father,  that  his  hands  were  full  of  a  great  burden 
of  investigations  he  wished  to  make  that  were  in- 
complete,  and   there   were   scores   of  questions 


182     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

in  his  mind  that  he  wanted  time  and  strength 
to  consider,  but  for  which  time  and  strength 
were  not  given.  What  human  Hfe  is  there  of 
which  we  could  not  say  that?  And  the  richer 
and  the  more  glorious  it  is,  the  fuller  it  is  of 
unfinished  and  uncompleted  projects. 

And  even  beyond  all  this,  long  before  we  have 
ever  got  to  the  end  of  our  race  our  strength  has 
failed  us  and  our  pace  has  lagged  and  we  have 
fallen  short  of  our  own  ideals  for  ourselves. 
There  is  not  one  of  us  who  carries  his  bat 
through  to  the  end  of  the  game.  Long  before 
the  game  is  ended  we  have  grown  tired  and 
have  fallen  down. 

I  said  that  no  lips  but  Christ's  could  ever  say, 
"  I  have  finished  my  work."  Some  of  you  may 
be  remembering  words  that  the  Apostle  Paul 
wrote  that  seem  to  contradict  that  statement. 
It  was  his  ambition  to  finish  his  work.  "  I  count 
not  my  life  dear  to  myself,  so  that  I  may  finish 
my  course  with  joy";  and  he  wrote,  in  the  last 
of  his  Epistles,  "  I  have  fought  a  good  fight.  I 
have  finished  my  course."  But  did  he  finish  his 
work?  He  finished  his  course  and  came  to  the 
end,  to  be  sure,  but  did  he  finish  his  work?  Why, 
men  are  fighting  to  this  day  over  the  work  of 
the  Apostle  Paul  who  are  agreed  over  the  work 
of  Christ.  The  work  of  Jesus  stands  complete, 
polished,  finished.  No  man  can  add  one  word 
to  it  or  subtract  one  word  from  it.  You  cannot 
say  as  much  as  that  even  of  the  work  of  the 


WORK    FOR    HIS    FOLLOWERS      183 

Apostle  Paul  himself.     Alone  of  all  those  who 
have  ever  lived,  Jesus  finished  His  work.     He 
carried  it  through  to  the  end.     All  the  shame  of 
that  dark  hour  and  the  stinging  pains  of  those 
nails  in  His  hands  and  His  feet  did  not  obscure 
His  vision  of  His  work.     He  opened  there  in 
the  last  hour  of  all  the  gates  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  to  one  of  His  dying  companions;   He 
prayed  that  the  Father  might  forgive  the  mur- 
derers who  knew  not  what  they  did,  and  He 
made  a  home  for  His  mother.     At  the  very  end 
He  was  rounding  out  the  perfect  work  of  His 
life.     Men  now  and  then  have  come  near  to  that. 
It  is  told  of  old  Father  Taylor,  the  seaman's-^ 
chaplain  in  Boston,  that  once  in  his  old  age,  / 
when  he  was  in  his  dotage,  he  came  in  a  corridor    ' 
to  a  great  mirror  and  he  saw  an  old  man  there. 
Not  recognising  it  as  himself,  he  went  up  to  him, 
and  he  said :  "  Old  man,  I  wish  you  would  come  / 
to    Christ;    you    haven't    very    much    life    left.  [ 
Your  sun  will  soon  set ;  the  night  of  death  is  just  ^ 
ahead.     Forsake   your   sins   now   and   come  to 
Christ    before    it    is     too     late."      And    you 
know  that  among  the  last  things  recorded  of 
John  Eliot,  apostle  to  the  Indians,  was  the  scene 
described  by  one  who  went  in  and  found  him  on 
his  death  bed.     There  was  a  little  Indian  girl     i 
standing  by  the  bed,  and  John  Eliot  was  teaching    | 
her  the  alphabet;  and  when  somebody  remon-    I 
strated  with  him  because  he  was  using  up  his 
strength  and   overtaxing  himself,   he  reminded 


184     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

them  of  Christ.     Jesus  finished  His  work.     He 
finished  His  work  in  the  sense  that  until  the  very 
end   He  was   rounding  it  out  to   completeness. 
He  finished  it  also  in  the  sense  that  He  did  it 
absolutely  truly — no  omitted  thing  in  His  life; 
no  committed  thing  that  He  afterwards  repented 
and  grieved  for.    We  measure  our  own  life  over 
against  His  to-day,  besmirched  and  ragged,  torn 
through  with  schism  and  rent  and  imperfection. 
Who  are  we  that  we  should  even  be  given  a 
work  of  the  Father  to  do  like  Christ's  ?     And  yet 
if  it  be  true  that  the  work  given  us  is  God's 
work  for  us  to  do,  we  may  hope  also  that  it  is 
God's  work  for  us  also  to  complete  it,  and  that  if 
we  try  to  round  out  perfectly  this  day,  filling  it 
with  as  much  loving  ministry,  as  much  abhor- 
rence of  sin,  as  much  detestation  of  every  evil 
way,  as  much  tenderness  toward  little  children, 
as  much  love  of  what  is  pure  and  worthy  and 
beautiful  as  we  can,  by  His  grace  at  last  it  may 
be  possible  for  us  also  to  say,  as  Christ  said :  "  I 
have  glorified  Thee  on  the  earth.     I  have  finished 
the  work  which  Thou  gavest  Me  to  do  " ;  and 
until  then  we  have  no  ambition  that  it  should  end. 

"  I  ask  no  heaven  till  earth  be  Thine, 
No  glory  crown  while  work  of  mine 
Remaineth  here.     When  earth  shall  shine 

Among  the  stars,' 
Her  sins  cast  out,  her  captives  free, 
Her  voice  a  music  unto  Thee, 
For  crown,  more  work  give  Thou  to  me. 

Lord,  here  I  am." 


X 

THE   BURNING   HEART 

THERE  passed  away  a  few  years  ago  from 
the  United  States  Senate  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  of  our  national  politicians. 
Some  would  be  disposed  to  say  one  of  the  most 
notorious,  but  it  is  only  fair,  both  to  him  and 
to  the  nation,  to  say  one  of  the  most  conspicu- 
ous. One  of  the  ablest  of  the  New  York  daily 
papers,  the  day  after  his  death,  published  a  just 
and  discriminating  analysis  of  his  character,  in 
which  the  man's  good  qualities  were  fairly 
recognised.  Attention  was  called  to  his 
moderation,  to  his  restraint,  to  his  usual 
clear-headedness,  and  to  his  patience.  Those 
were  the  Christian  qualities  of  the  man.  But 
the  editorial  went  on  to  point  out  that  side  by 
side  with  great  good  qualities  like  these  the  man 
was  marked  by  fundamental  weaknesses.  He 
was  without  the  imagination,  the  fine  sense  of 
public  feeling,  the  look  beyond  mere  tactical  ad- 
vantages, that  the  statesman  needs.  He  lacked 
the  perception  and  the  inspiration  of  vital  be- 
liefs ;  the  genuine  enthusiasm  for  a  principle 
vitally  believed  in  he  seemed  never  to  have 
shared  or  understood.  These  were  the  great 
Christian  qualities  that  the  man  lacked.  Hq 
185 


186     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

had  no  great  vision  of  the  truth ;  he  never  knew 
what  it  was  to  have  made  a  great  moral  choice 
of  the  truth  as  against  all  falsehood,  and  there 
never  burned  in  him  any  deep  and  intense  de- 
votion to  a  principle  for  its  own  sake  or  to  the 
truth  even  until  death.  And  those  are  the  three 
qualities,  surely,  which  are  essential  to  a  true 
character :  a  clear  perception  of  the  truth,  a 
decisive  moral  choice  of  the  truth,  an  intense 
service  of  the  truth  with  all  the  zeal  of  the  soul. 
Now  every  effort  has  been  made  in  God's 
education  of  us  to  confront  each  one  of  us  with 
a  clear  statement  of  the  truth.  Again  and  again 
appeal  has  been  made  to  us  to  make  a  deliberate 
moral  choice  of  the  truth  and  the  right.  And 
the  remaining  question  is  whether,  as  we  look 
out  upon  the  scenes  of  daily  life,  we  are  going  to 
carry  with  us  into  the  testings  and  the  services 
and  the  duties  of  the  days  that  intense  spirit  of 
devotion,  that  genuine  earnestness  of  heart,  with- 
out which  we  will  not  be  able  to  keep  either  the 
vision  of  the  truth  or  the  choice  of  the  truth 
which  we  may  have  made,  and  without  which 
we  shall  not  be  able  to  make  that  impress  on 
the  world  which  God  has  commissioned  us  to 
make.  I  do  not  know  how  better  to  state  this 
quality  of  character  than  in  one  phrase  in  the 
twelfth  chapter  of  Romans,  the  phrase  which  is 
found  in  the  heart  of  the  verse  that  runs,  "  Not 
slothful  in  business,  fervent  in  spirit,  serving 
the  Lord." 


THE    BURNING    HEART  187 

Now,  that  word  "  fervent "  does  not  do  jus- 
tice to  the  word  which  Paul  used.  The  word 
that  Paul  wrote  means  literally  "  boiling." 
Paul's  idea  was  of  a  man  with  a  hot  and  burning 
heart.  Let  us  tone  the  word  down,  if  we  wish 
to,  and  call  it  simply  "  earnestness,"  a  real  de- 
votion to  the  thing  to  which  we  have  now  com- 
mitted our  lives.  Is  that  earnest  glow  now 
really  burning  in  our  hearts? 

We  need  this  earnestness  in  the  warfare  in 
which  we  are  now  engaged,  in  which  we  are  to 
continue  to  be  engaged,  with  evil  and  with  sin. 
It  would  be  a  fine  thing  if  we  might  believe  some 
of  the  counsels  that  are  spoken  to  us,  that  these 
lives  of  ours  were  meant  to  be  dress  parades, 
that  there  is  no  enemy  to  fight,  that  all  that  we 
need  to  do  is  just  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  foe  and 
that  that  extinguishes  him.  We  know  perfectly 
well  that  we  are  engaged  in  a  war.  As  St.  Paul 
says,  in  Myers'  words: 

"Battle  I  know  as  long  as  life  remaineth, 
Battle  for  all." 

It  will  not  deliver  us  from  the  reality  of  that 
battle  to  try  to  be  nice  toward  sin.  Sin  only 
asks  of  us  that  we  should  persuade  ourselves 
that  it  does  not  mean  to  fight  in  order  to  thrust 
us  in  the  back  the  moment  we  have  begun  to 
trust  that  the  war  is  done.  From  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  the  Bible  it  is  military  metaphor. 


188     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

I  do  not  know  what  those  men  are  going  to  do 
with  the  moral  message  of  the  Bible  who  make 
Christian  experience  a  gentle  and  uncontrover- 
sial  thing.  The  whole  New  Testament  is  full 
of  the  idea  that  Christianity  is  a  strife,  and  that 
the  man  who  takes  up  the  Christian  life  takes 
up  a  struggle  that  will  never  close  until  his  life 
closes,  and  maybe  not  then.  We  are  told  re- 
peatedly there  that  w,e  have  great  enemies  who 
are  waiting  for  our  souls,  that  we  wrestle  not 
with  flesh  and  blood — that  were  an  easy  con- 
flict— ^but  with  principalities  and  powers  and 
with  the  spirits  of  darkness,  who  lie  in  hiding 
for  us  when  we  are  least  aware.  Our  adversary, 
the  devil,  goes  up  and  down  like  a  roaring  lion, 
seeking  whom  he  may  devour,  whom  we  are 
bidden  to  resist  steadfast  in  the  faith.  And  you 
remember  the  vivid  verse  in  the  beginning  of 
the  twelfth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews, where  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  evidently 
has  in  mind  the  young  Hebrews  or  Hebrew 
Christians  of  his  day,  I  suppose  the  second 
Christian  generation,  and  is  comparing  the  fight 
which  they  were  making  against  sin  with  the  kind 
of  fight  which  their  fathers  had  made  and  the  old 
Jewish  heroes  and  heroines  before  them.  "  See- 
ing," he  says,  "  that  we  are  surrounded  with  so 
great  a  cloud  of  witnesses,  let  us  run  with  pa- 
tience the  race  that  is  set  before  us,  looking  unto 
Jesus  the  author  and  finisher  of  our  faith.  As 
for  you,  you  have  not  begun  to  fight  yet.     Ye 


THE    BURNING    HEART  189 

have  not  yet  resisted  unto  blood  striving  against 
sin."  Now,  all  the  context  is  a  story  of  men 
and  women  who  resisted  unto  blood,  some  of 
whom  were  sawn  asunder,  others  of  whom  were 
torn  with  wild  beasts;  and  in  comparison  with 
all  that  devotion  to  righteousness  and  that  will- 
ingness to  battle  even  to  death  against  sin,  the 
writer  of  the  Epistle  speaks  to  the  young  men  of 
his  day  and  says,  "  As  for  you,  you  have  not 
yet  offered  the  manly  resistance  of  your  blood." 
You  remember  the  picture  in  "  The  Seawolf " 
of  the  man  who  was  put  to  work,  unaccustomed 
to  such  toil,  amid  the  ropes  of  the  rigging,  and 
compelled  to  work  until  the  ends  of  his  fingers 
were  worn  off  and  the  blood  ran  over  his  hands. 
Well,  that  is  the  kind  of  fight  that  the  writer  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  thinks  men  ought  to 
wage  against  sin.  And,  after  all,  all  life  that 
is  worth  anything  is  the  letting  out  of  blood, 
whether  it  is  in  the  accompHshing  of  good  or 
in  the  suppression  of  evil.  Somebody  asked 
Quintin  Hogg  once,  the  founder  of  the  Poly- 
technic Institute  of  London,  a  man  who  put  a 
large  fortune  into  the  accomplishment  of  his 
work,  but  who  laid  down  something  beside  that 
was  worth  more  than  a  fortune,  "  Mr.  Hogg, 
how  much  does  it  cost  to  build  up  an  institute 
like  yours?  "  "  Only  one  man's  life  blood,"  was 
Mr.  Hogg's  reply.  And  how  much  does  it  cost 
to  wage  a  successful  warfare  against  sin?  Only 
one   man's   life  blood.      Every  heroic   story   of 


190     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

conflict  with  sin  has  been  written  with  ink  of 
blood.  Every  separate  achievement  and  victory 
in  it  has  been  won  by  the  letting  out  of  life; 
and  if  you  and  I  are  to  wage  any  war- 
fare at  all  in  this  conflict  that  gives  promise  of 
success  we  must  go  into  it  with  intense  and 
burning  hearts. 

Now,  one  great  difficulty  with  the  religion  of 
our  day,  I  think,  is  just  here.  There  is  an 
anaemic  softness  that  has  come  over  it  that  leads 
a  great  many  men  to  loosen  their  grip  on  the 
old  militant  purpose  of  a  warfare  against  sin. 
There  is  a  passage  in  Cardinal  Newman's 
"  Apologia  "  in  which  he  sets  forth  his  idea  of 
a  real  religion,  and  frankly  expresses  his  wish 
that  the  religion  of  Great  Britain  were  fiercer 
and  gloomier  and  more  terrible  than  he  found  it 
to  be.  I  think  in  our  own  land  it  would  be 
a  better  thing  if  our  religion  were  a  little  fiercer, 
if  we  got  into  it  more  of  that  spirit  that  we 
put  into  some  of  our  non-religious  conflicts,  if 
we  understood  that  in  this  great  battle  for  our 
souls  we  are  to  fight  with  evil  and  wickedness 
even  to  the  knife,  and  with  the  knife  to  the  hilt. 
When  Christ  masters  men's  hearts  they  will 
blaze  as  His  blazed  against  sin. 

And  sometimes  this  will  involve  violent  con- 
flicts with  men.  There  are  bad  men  in  the 
world,  and  we  are  not  meant  to  go  hand  in  glove 
with  all  men.  We  are  meant  now  and  then  to 
confront  our  man.     It  is  all  very  well  to  say 


THE    BURNING    HEART  191 

that  the  battle  with  sin  is  to  be  an  impersonal 
battle,  and  indeed  we  should  keep  it  so  just  as 
long  as  we  can.  We  are  to  hold  on  even  to  the 
bad  men  with  the  truest  love,  but  there  are 
men  who  go  beyond  the  bounds ;  there  are  men 
who  put  themselves  where  at  last  the  only  thing 
for  Christian  men  to  do  is  to  confront  them 
and  fight  them  as  themselves  the  emissaries  and 
the  friends  and  the  incarnation  of  that  evil 
against  which  we  must  manage  somehow  to 
drive  home  and  war  in  the  name  and  spirit  of 
Christ,  who  made  no  compromise  with  it  even 
though  it  cost  Him  His  life.  We  may  be  sure 
that  as  we  go  out  through  life  we  shall  only  go 
in  the  spirit  that  makes  victory  certain  if  we 
go  with  burning  hearts  of  hatred  against  all 
evil  and  sin. 

Now,  there  are  four  different  attitudes  that 
men  take  toward  sin.  There  is  the  attitude  of 
indulgence,  there  is  the  attitude  of  indifference, 
there  is  the  attitude  of  ignorance,  and  there  is 
the  attitude  of  indignation.  It  is  a  good  thing 
for  a  man  to  be  ignorant  of  such  sin  as  he  can 
— no  man  needs  to  know  it  in  order  to  be  influen- 
tial ;  the  power  of  experienced  sin  is  not  as  great 
as  the  power  of  innocence  that  has  met  sin  and 
vanquished  it  without  surrendering  its  innocence. 
It  is  not  necessary  for  any  man  who  would  be 
a  man  of  power  to  acquire  intimacy  with  sin. 
But  there  are  many  sins  of  which  we  cannot 
be  ignorant.    They  rise  right  up  out  of  our  own 


192     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

hearts,  they  confront  us  in  the  Hves  of  our 
friends.  Against  these  sins,  whether  in  us  or  in 
other  men,  the  only  right  Christian  attitude  is 
the  attitude  of  a  hot  indignation.  When  we 
think  of  what  sin  has  done,  when  we  think  of 
the  Httle  children  who  are  bearing  its  scars  in 
their  innocent  bodies,  and  will  bear  them  until 
they  die,  when  we  think  of  all  the  purity  that 
has  been  wrecked  by  it,  when  we  think  of  the 
treason  with  which  sin  will  make  truce  and  then 
stab  beneath  that  flag,  when  we  think  of  the 
spirit  of  sin  which  leads  it  to  poison  its  enemies' 
wells  and  fight  under  every  rule  abhorrent  to 
right  men,  there  is  nothing  for  men  to  do  in 
their  conflict  with  sin  but  to  be  hot  against  it, 
and  to  go  out  into  the  battle  with  that  boiling 
spirit  which  was  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  whom 
the  fires  of  His  zeal  consumed. 

And  we  need  this  spirit  of  earnestness  not 
alone  in  our  conflict  with  sin;  we  need  it  also 
in  fidelity  to  our  principles  and  convictions. 
There  is  a  philosophical  spirit — or  that  is  the 
way  men  dignify  it — in  our  day  that  makes  a 
man  unwilling  to  collide  with  another  man  in 
the  advocacy  of  his  principles  and  his  convic- 
tions. If  he  cannot  get  the  other  man  to  take 
it  softly  he  will  not  try  to  get  the  other  man  to 
take  it  at  all;  and  there  are  many  men  who  will 
not  stand  for  moral  principles  which  involve  any 
rigidity  of  attitude  or  interfere  with  other  men's 
liberties.    But  there  are  antagonistic  principles; 


THE    BURNING    HEART  193 

you  cannot  get  them  together,  and  the  only  way 
in  which  this  world  can  move  on  into  that  great 
kingdom  where  the  true  and  pure  things  prevail 
is  by  virtue  of  the  readiness  of  the  men  who 
have  the  truth  not  to  be  afraid  to  let  that  truth 
come  in  conflict  with  the  error  and  the  false- 
hood. 

After  all,  no  movement  will  run  that  does  not 
run  on  men.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  power  in 
the  truth  apart  from  its  embodiment  in  men; 
but  after  all  the  only  way  that  movements  work 
in  the  world,  the  only  way  that  truth  accom- 
plishes results  in  social  order,  is  when  the  move- 
ments work  and  the  truth  accomplishes  by  and 
in  and  through  men.  It  would  be  an  easy  mat- 
ter to  run  back  over  the  history  of.  our  own 
land  in  its  politics ;  it  would  be  a  very  easy 
thing  to  run  back  over  the  history  of  the  Church 
and  show  that  movements  are  just  as  strong  as 
the  men  in  them  are  earnest.  What  made  the 
Reformation  what  it  was  was  the  great  robust 
German,  the  unbending  Genevan,  the  unfright- 
ened  Scot  back  of  it.  There  never  would  have 
been  any  Reformation  with  Erasmus.  "  I  was 
always  timid,"  he  says ;  "  I  never  could  bear 
confusion.  There  are  times  even  when  a  man 
must  suppress  the  truth.  What  am  I,  a  mere 
worm,  that  I  should  disturb  the  state?"  Then 
there  rose  up  a  great,  rough  German  who  looked 
out  on  the  world  with  no  such  timid  soul,  who 
Relieved  that  when  men  had  the  truth  they  were 


194     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

to  fight  for  the  truth,  were  to  carry  the  truth 
against  the  world,  and  with  his  strong  shoulders 
by  God's  grace  Luther  moved  the  current  of 
human  history.  And  the  current  ran  without 
the  deflection  of  weakness  or  fear  across  the 
cool  minds  and  hot  hearts  of  John  Calvin  and 
John  Knox. 

As  we  go  out  through  life,  we  must  go  as 
propagandists.  Christian  men  cannot  go  out 
with  their  lights  hidden  under  a  bushel;  they 
cannot  go  out  with  the  savour  and  the  power 
of  their  salt  concealed.  If  our  faith  is  not  true 
we  should  change  it;  but  if  it  is  true,  we  should 
subdue  the  world  to  it.  We  need  not  only  to 
be  earnest  in  our  battle  with  sin:  we  must  be 
dead  in  earnest  also  in  the  convictions  that  we 
hold.  We  believe  in  the  divinity  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  We  must  refuse  to  compromise 
this  truth.  We  must  not  allow  the  foundations 
to  be  taken  out  from  under  the  Christian  Church, 
that  stands,  if  it  stands  at  all,  on  Him;  and  I 
believe  that  we  who  believe  in  Him,  who  know 
that  He  is  the  only  Saviour  of  the  world,  have 
no  dispensation  from  Him  to  go  out  into  the 
world  and  allow  our  Lord  to  be  trampled  under 
foot  and  His  cross  to  be  made  of  none  effect. 
"  Fervent  in  spirit "  means  that  with  heat  of 
heart  we  are  to  hold  immovably  by  our  princi- 
ples and  our  convictions. 

Being  fervent  in  spirit  means  much  more — 
that  our  hearts  are  to  be  warm  in  fellowship. 


THE    BURNING    HEART  195 

Christian  men  ought  to  display  in  their  brother- 
hood a  relationship  so  real,  so  powerful,  so  deep, 
that  it  will  not  be  necessary  for  men  to  set  up 
all  these  fictitious  brotherhoods  outside  the 
Christian  Church.  These  organizations  are  a 
great  reproach  to  Christ's  brotherhood.  They 
have  grown  up,  many  of  them,  because  we  have 
not  shown  the  real  spirit  of  brotherhood  in  the 
Church,  because  we  have  not  shown  a  heat  of 
heart  in  our  relationship  to  one  another.  Life 
is  broken  into  castes.  Human  fellowship  is  fet- 
tered by  artificial  conventions.  In  his  life  of 
Stonewall  Jackson,  his  British  biographer  points 
out  that  when  he  went  to  West  Point  life  there 
was  hedged  in,  as  life  everywhere  is  hedged  in, 
by  all  kinds  of  traditional  limits  of  conduct. 
Now,  Stonewall  Jackson  would  have  none  of 
these  things,  and  he  was  a  strong  enough  man 
to  set  up  his  own  standards  against  the  stand- 
ards of  the  crowd.  And  in  much  of  our  Chris- 
tian life  such  crowd  ideals  as  these  prevail.  We 
must  feel  in  our  hearts  that  great  passion  for 
one  another  of  which  Peter  speaks,  "  That  see- 
ing our  hearts  have  been  purified  by  obedience 
to  the  truth  unto  the  unfeigned  love  of  the 
brethren,  we  should  love  one  another  from  a 
pure  heart  fervently."  How  infrequent  a  thing 
it  is  for  a  man  to  say  to  a  man,  "  My  friend,  I 
love  you."  We  shut  all  that  down  deep  in  our 
hearts  and  allow  no  such  confessions  to  emerge. 
And  this  is  a  small  thing.    Do  we  feel  and  prove 


196     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

the  love?  Where  is  the  real  commanding  hu- 
man brotherhood,  though  unexpressed  in  words? 
I  do  not  wonder  that  men  who  want  the  fellow- 
ship of  hearts  set  up  all  kinds  of  brotherhoods 
outside  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  They  are 
seeking  what  Christianity  was  meant  to  give 
them.  Surely  we  ought  to  go  out  to  illustrate  in 
the  world  the  reality  of  the  great  fervent  brother- 
hood of  Christian  men. 

And,  once  more,  we  need  this  earnest  spirit  in 
our  service  of  God  and  man.  Consider  for  a 
moment  the  example  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
in  this.  His  brethren  came  once  to  Him  assured 
that  the  man  had  gone  mad.  He  took  no  leisure 
so  much  as  to  eat  He  had  made  it  so  fully  His 
meat  and  drink  to  do  His  Father's  will  that  He 
actually  neglected  the  meat  and  drink  of  which 
His  body  stood  in  need.  And  you  remember 
the  great  words  into  which  He  condensed  the 
whole  spirit  of  His  life :  "  We  must  work  the 
works  of  Him  that  sent  Me  while  it  is  day,  for 
the  night  is  coming  when  no  man  can  work." 

When  we  turn  from  His  life  to  the  life  of 
St.  Paul  we  find  another  hot-hearted  life,  the 
kind  of  man  who,  when  he  was  a  Jew,  was  a 
Jew  to  the  full,  and  when  he  became  a  Chris- 
tian was  likewise  to  the  full  a  Christian  man, 
and  who  at  last  rejoiced  when  he  was  counted 
worthy  to  lay  down  his  life  for  Christ.  We  are 
reminded  in  connection  with  him  of  the  fine  words 
of  Thomas  Fuller  of  Cromwell's  time :     *'  The 


THE    BURNING    HEART  197 

good  soldier  grudgeth  not  to  get  a  probability  of 
victory  by  the  certainty  of  his  own  death,  and 
fleeth  from  nothing  so  much  as  from  the  men- 
tion of  fleeing;  and  though  the  world  call  him 
a  madman,  our  soldier  knoweth  that  he  shall 
receive  the  reward  of  his  valour  with  God  in 
Heaven,  and  making  the  world  his  executor 
leave  it  to  the  rich  inheritance  of  his  memory." 
The  men  who  have  been  good  soldiers  of  Jesus 
Christ  have  gone  forth  in  His  service  with  such 
a  heart.  They  have  not  been  lukewarm  men; 
they  have  not  been  men  who  gave  Christ  part 
of  their  hearts  and  held  back  the  rest ;  they  have 
been  men  who  have  gone  after  Him  into  ser- 
vice with  all  the  heat  of  devoted  lives,  who  have 
served  Him  with  the  single-mindedness  with 
which  John  Brown,  for  example,  served  what 
he  conceived  to  be  his  cause.  Now  you  may 
call  John  Brown  a  crazy  man  if  you  please. 
Governor  Wise  of  Virginia  did  not  think  he  was. 
Somebody  spoke  in  that  way  once  about  John 
Brown  in  Governor  Wise's  hearing,  and  he  re- 
plied :  "  They  are  mistaken  who  take  Brown  to 
be  a  madman.  He  is  a  bundle  of  the  best  nerves 
I  ever  saw ;  cut  and  thrust  and  bleeding,  and  in 
bonds.  He  is  a  man  of  clear  head,  of  courage, 
fortitude,  and  simple  ingenuousness.  He  is 
cool,  collected,  and  indomitable,  and  it  is  but 
just  to  him  to  say  that  he  was  humane  to  his 
prisoners,  and  he  inspired  me  with  great  trust 
in  his  integrity   as  a  man  of  truth.     He  is  a 


198     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

fanatic,  vain  and  garrulous,  but  firm,  truthful, 
and  intelligent.  He  professes  to  be  a  Christian, 
in  communion  with  the  Congregational  Church 
of  the  North,  and  openly  preaches  his  purpose 
of  universal  emancipation ;  and  the  negroes 
themselves  were  to  be  the  agents,  by  means  of 
arms,  led  on  by  white  commanders. 
Colonel  Washington  says  that  he  was  the  cool- 
est and  firmest  man  he  ever  saw  in  defying  dan- 
ger and  death.  With  one  son  dead  by  his  side, 
and  another  shot  through,  he  felt  the  pulse  of 
his  son  with  one  hand,  held  his  rifle  with  the 
other,  and  commanded  his  men  with  the  utmost 
composure,  encouraging  them  to  be  firm,  and  to 
sell  their  lives  as  dearly  as  they  could." 

Mr.  Sanborn,  his  biographer,  relates  that  one 
day  in  Charleston  Jail  a  minister  came  to  call 
on  him  and  defended  slavery  as  a  Christian  in- 
stitution. "  My  dear  sir,"  said  the  old  man, 
"  you  know  nothing  about  Christianity.  You 
will  have  to  learn  its  a  b  c.  I  find  you  quite 
ignorant  of  what  the  word  Christianity  means." 
And  when  the  man  looked  at  him,  very  much 
disconcerted,  John  Brown  softened  a  little :  "  I 
respect  you  as  a  gentleman,  of  course,  but  it  is 
as  a  heathen  gentleman."  And  it  was  exactly 
that  intensity  of  feeling  in  the  old  man  that  made 
him  willing  for  the  sake  of  his  cause  to  lay  down 
his  life,  and  the  heat  of  his  passion  set  this  land 
on  fire. 

Christian  men  are  to   serve   Christ  and  men 


THE    BURNING    HEART  199 

with  no  less  sacrificial  devotion.  General  Arm- 
strong was  this  type  of  Christ's  servant.  Gen- 
eral Marshall  says  of  him  and  his  attitude  to 
difficulties :  "  For  most  people  an  obstacle  is 
something  in  the  way  to  stop  going  on,  but  for 
General  Armstrong  it  merely  meant  something 
to  climb  over,  and  if  he  could  not  climb  all  the 
way  over  he  would  get  up  as  high  as  possible, 
and  then  crow."  As  he  said  himself,  "  I  have 
had  a  taste  of  blood,  i.  e.,  I  have  had  the  taste 
of  life  and  work — cannot  live  without  the  arena. 
I  must  be  in  it.  .  .  .  Despair  shakes  his 
skinny  hand  and  glares  his  hideous  eyes  on  me 
to  little  purpose.  I  feel  happy  when  all  my 
powers  of  resistance  are  taxed."  He  believed 
that  all  men  were  called  on  to  wage  a  great  war 
for  God,  and  that  in  their  warfare  for  God  they 
were  meant  to  work  and  fight  in  an  even  in- 
tenser  spirit  than  that  in  which  they  would  work 
and  fight  for  their  native  land.  You  re- 
member Chinese  Gordon's  experience  with  Li 
Hung  Chang.  Now,  Chinese  Gordon  was  a 
man  of  peace.  He  did  not  usually  carry  a 
weapon,  but  he  went  and  hunted  once  for  the 
life  of  Li  Hung  Chang.  Li  Hung  Chang  had 
lied  to  him.  He  had  promised  to  save  the  lives 
of  the  Taiping  princes  taken  in  the  city  of  Soo 
Chow,  and  then  he  had  them  executed,  and  once 
in  his  life  Chinese  Gordon's  temper  got  beyond 
his  control.  He  took  a  revolver  and  went  on  a 
hunt  for  Li  Hung  Chang,  and.  if  he  had  ever 


200     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

found  him  Li  Hung  Chang's  subsequent  career 
would  never  have  been  fulfilled.  I  imagine  that 
Gordon  was  glad  afterwards  that  he  did  not  find 
him,  but  I  imagine  that  he  was  glad  also  to  the 
last  day  that  he  went  and  looked  for  him,  that 
he  had  in  his  heart  the  spirit  that  made  him 
desire  to  resent  a  great  crime  and  wrong,  that 
put  him  in  his  "  sparring  mood,"  as  one  of  the 
gentlest  of  our  women  missionaries  put  it  just 
a  little  while  ago — that  put  him  in  his  "  sparring 
mood  "  against  all  evil  and  sin.  Are  we  ever  in 
a  "  sparring  mood,"  or  are  we  living  hand  in 
glove  with  all  sorts  of  tepidity  and  weakness, 
and  in  surrender  to  sin  and  quietness  and  indo- 
lence and  spiritual  torpor  and  cowardice?  Is 
that  our  spirit,  or  have  we  hearts  hot  to  do  in 
the  world  the  work  of  God?  It  is  all  put  for  us 
in  one  of  Dr,  Bonar's  hymns: 

"Time  worketh.    Let  me  work  too. 
Time  undoeth.    Let  me  do. 
As  busy  as  time  my  work  I  ply 
Till  I  rest  in  the  rest  of  eternity. 

"  Sin  worketh.    Let  me  work  too. 
Sin    undoeth.    Let    me    do. 
As  busy  as  sin  my  work  I  ply 
Till  I  rest  in  the  rest  of  eternity. 

"  Death  worketh.    Let  me  work  too. 
Death  undoeth.    Let  me  do. 
As  busy  as  death  my  work  I  ply 
Till  I  rest  in  the  rest  of  eternity " 


THE    BURNING    HEART  201 

And  now,  lastly,  not  alone  do  we  need  to  have 
hearts  hot  for  battle  with  sin,  hot  in  fidelity  to 
our  great  principles  and  convictions,  warm  in 
their  love  for  the  men  who  with  us  love  our 
Brother,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  for  those 
who  ought  to  love  Him,  warm  in  their  devotion 
to  their  duty  in  the  world,  but  they  must  be 
warm  also  in  their  personal  love  and  loyalty  to 
the  Master  of  Hearts,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Whatever  of  life  and  power  we  have  ever  re- 
ceived, we  have  received  because  of  our  living 
contact  with  Him.  It  has  not  come  to  us  be- 
cause of  any  preaching  of  high  ethical  doctrine; 
it  has  not  come  to  us  because  of  any  general 
atmosphere,  save  as  that  itself  is  the  product 
of  our  Lord's  personal  power.  Whatever  has 
come  to  us  of  heavenly  good  has  come  from 
our  divine  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Life  and  the  Light  of  men ;  and  if  we  are  going 
to  keep  it  as  we  go  on  our  way  we  shall  only 
keep  it  because  we  walk  in  a  warm  and  earnest 
fellowship  with  Him.  And  that  fellowship  in- 
volves a  real  life  of  prayer,  a  Hfe  of  prayer  in- 
tensely real.  There  is  no  more  Scriptural  ad- 
jective to  use  about  it  than  just  this  adjective, 
"  earnest."  There  are  two  places  in  the  New 
Testament  where  this  word  is  used  with  refer- 
ence to  prayer:  once  in  Luke's  account  of  our 
Lord's  prayer  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane, 
"  And  He  prayed  yet  more  earnestly,  and  the 
sweat  stood  out  on  His  brow  as  it  were  great 


202     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

drops  of  blood."  Now,  If  you  will  look  in  your 
tjreek  Testament  you  will  find  that  the  word  that 
is  translated  here  "  earnestly  "  is  a  word  that  a 
Greek  might  have  used  in  describing  a  race  be- 
tween men  or  horses,  when  at  the  very  last, 
when  the  two  men  come  down  breast  and  breast, 
or  the  two  horses  neck  and  neck,  one  leans  for- 
ward with  just  an  extra  strain,  and  by  that 
strain  prevails.  Luke's  idea  is  that  our  Lord 
prayed  strainingly,  and  how  strainingly  He 
prayed  we  may  judge  from  the  fact  that  His 
sweat  was  red  blood.  The  other  place  where  the 
word  occurs  is  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  Epistle 
of  James,  where  we  are  told  that  Elijah  prayed 
earnestly.  Now  the  Greek  word  is  not  the  same 
there.  If  you  will  turn  to  your  Greek  Testa- 
ment you  will  find  that  it  says  He  prayed  "  in 
prayer."  That  is.  He  did  not  describe  God  in 
prayer;  He  did  not  issue  a  moral  exhortation  in 
prayer;  he  did  not  do  anything  in  prayer  but 
pray;  He  prayed  in  prayer,  and  the  English 
translators  have  correctly  said  He  prayed  ear- 
nestly. Can  we  apply  such  terms  of  description 
to  our  prayers?  Are  we  earnest  in  them?  Do 
our  prayers  reach  down  and  grip  the  bottom 
cords  of  our  hearts? 

And  do  our  hearts  burn  within  us  toward 
Christ?  In  southern  China,  some  years  ago, 
in  a  city  on  the  borders  of  the  province  of  Hu- 
nan, I  talked  with  a  young  Chinese  Christian 
man.     He  was  a  graduate  of  a  college  in  the 


THE    BURNING    HEART  203 

far  north.  He  had  come  a  thousand  miles  away 
from  home  to  preach  Christ  among  his  own 
countrymen.  He  was  one  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent Chinese  Christians  whom  I  had  met.  And 
I  was  asking  him  many  questions  regarding  his 
nation,  and  especially  regarding  the  life  and 
spirit  of  the  Chinese  Christians.  And  when  I 
was  through  he  said,  "  Mr.  Speer,  you  have 
asked  me  a  great  many  questions,  and  some  of 
them  have  been  very  difficult.  You  have  asked 
about  the  Christians  in  China.  Now,  I  would 
like  to  ask  you  one  question.  You  know  what 
the  Christians  in  your  country  are  like.  Are 
they  all  men  and  women  of  burning  hearts  ? " 
It  was  a  quaint  Chinese  idiom  of  which  he 
made  use,  but  that  was  its  literal  translation. 
He  desired  to  know  if  we  were  all  of  us  of 
burning  hearts.  What  would  you  have  said  to 
him?  What  would  you  have  said  to  him  about 
yourself?  What  would  you  have  said  to  him 
about  the  great  mass  of  our  so-called  Christians  ? 
Are  we  of  burning  hearts?  Have  any  of  our 
hearts  burned  within  us  as  did  the  hearts  of  the 
two  who  walked  with  the  Saviour  that  evening 
long  ago?  Have  our  hearts  ever  burned  within 
us  while  He  talked  with  us  by  the  way?  Are 
our  hearts  now  aglow  in  a  great  and  tender  love 
for  Jesus  Christ?  Oh,  whatever  else  our  hearts 
may  be  cool  about,  let  them  at  least  be  warm 
toward  Him  who  loved  us  and  gave  Himself 
for  us  and  whom  having  not  seen  we  ought  to 


204     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

love.  Are  we  sure,  as  we  look  at  our  hearts 
now,  that  we  are  in  the  right  relationships  regard- 
ing our  lives?  Perhaps  some  of  us  have  put  off 
to  this  moment  great  decisions  which  we  know 
we  ought  to  make,  and  our  wills  are  trembling 
in  the  balance  now;  a  feather's  weight  of  influ- 
ence would  carry  them  over.  And  I  suppose 
some  of  us — who  have  heard  Christ  asking 
us  for  our  lives,  for  our  wills,  for  our  hearts — 
will  refuse  and  instead  of  handing  them  over  to 
Him  will  go  on  retaining  them  in  our  own 
control.  There  are  many  who  have  seen  the 
great  vision  of  a  service  of  the  world  who  are 
still  going  on  their  way  without  yielding  up  their 
lives  to  its  glory.  "  Though  you  and  I  are 
very  little  beings,"  said  Samuel  J.  Mills  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  "  we  must  not  rest  satisfied  till 
we  have  made  our  influence  extend  to  the  remot- 
est corner  of  this  ruined  world."  The  tempera- 
ture of  our  hearts  toward  Christ  will  determine 
the  issues  of  our  decision. 

"  'Tis  not  for  man  to  trifle,  life  is  brief 

And  sin  is  here; 
Our  age  is  but  the  falling  of  a  leaf, 

A  dropping  tear. 
We  have  no  time  to  sport  away  the  hours, 
All  must  be  earnest  in  a  world  like  ours. 

"  Not  many  lives,  but  only  one  have  we, 
One,  only  one, 
How  earnest  should  that  one  life  be. 
That  narrow  span. 


THE    BURNING    HEART  205 

Day  after  day  spent  in  blessed  toil, 

Hour  after  hour  still  bringing  in  new  spoil." 

Until  at  the  last,  the  work  of  the  day  done,  the 
battle  over  and  the  long  shadows  of  the  evening 
falling  across  the  land,  we  make  our  way  home. 
What  will  our  greeting  be  from  Him  who  is 
waiting  for  us  by  the  setting  of  the  sun  ? 


XI 

THE  MASTER,  THE  SATISFACTION  OF 
THE  HEART 

*'  Y  AM  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life." 
I  These  words  were  spoken  by  our  Saviour 
-°-  in  answer  to  the  second  of  the  four  inter- 
ruptions which  He  suffered  from  His  disciples 
in  the  upper  room  on  the  night  on  which  He 
was  betrayed.  He  had  been  speaking  to 
them  of  the  characteristic  of  the  new  Chris- 
tian society,  as  a  body  of  men  whose  love  for 
one  another  marked  them  as  Christ's.  Simon 
Peter,  intent,  as  most  of  us  are,  on  future  des- 
tiny rather  than  on  present  duty,  caught  up  some 
remarks  of  Jesus  about  His  intention  to  go  away, 
and  passing  by  altogether  His  command  to  love, 
the  most  significant  thing  that  He  had  said, 
asked  Him  whither  He  was  going.  Our  Lord 
answered  Simon's  inquiry,  and  left  him  dumb- 
founded with  what  He  told  him  of  his  own 
heart.  I  do  not  wonder  that  the  body  of  dis- 
ciples was  thrown  into  consternation  by  this 
remark  of  Christ's.  They  had  heard  Him  say  a 
little' while  before  that  one  of  them  was  to  betray 
Him ;  they  had  heard  Him  say  now  of  the  leader 
of  their  company  that  that  very  night  he  would 
deny  Christ  before  the  cock  had  crowed.     What 

206 


SATISFACTION    OF    THE    HEART     207 

confidence  could  there  be  in  man  any  more? 
Looking  out  upon  their  troubled  faces,  Jesus 
said :  ''  Let  not  your  hearts  be  troubled.  You 
have  lost  all  confidence  in  one  another,  you  have 
no  confidence  in  yourselves,  but  you  believe  in 
God ;  believe  also  in  Me.  In  My  Father's  house 
are  many  mansions :  if  it  were  not  so,  I  would 
have  told  you.  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you. 
And  if  I  go,  I  will  come  again,  and  will  receive 
you  unto  Myself ;  that  where  I  am,  there  ye  may 
be  also.  And  whither  I  go  ye  know  the  way." 
Then  Thomas  broke  in,  here  as  always,  as  Mar- 
cus Dods  says,  "  the  mouthpiece  of  the  despond- 
ency of  the  twelve."  "  Lord,"  he  says,  "  we 
know  not  whither  Thou  art  going ;  how  can  we 
know  the  way  ?  "  It  may  have  been  reprehen- 
sible in  Thomas  to  have  doubted  so  much  and  to 
have  had  such  a  chronic  disposition  of  despair, 
but  it  was  not  reprehensible  in  him  to  carry  his 
doubts  and  his  despondencies  to  Jesus.  Think 
what  we  should  have  lost  if  he  had  not  spoken 
out  the  frank,  blunt  feelings  of  his  heart  to  the 
Saviour.  If  he  had  not  told  the  Lord  this  night 
in  the  upper  room  that  he  did  not  know  where 
He  was  going,  and,  therefore,  could  not  know 
the  way,  we  might  not  have  had  this  priceless 
saying  of  Jesus,  "  I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth, 
and  the  life." 

Let  us  think,  for  a  moment,  of  this  declara- 
tion as  a  whole,  of  the  bold  comprehensive  claims 
of  it.     A  man  can  at  the  most  show  to  others  the 


208     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

way,  says  Gess;  he  cannot  claim  himself  to  be 
either  the  way,  the  truth,  or  the  life.  Jesus  is 
uttering  here  another  of  those  great  declara- 
tions that  separate  Him  from  all  men  and  all 
other  teachers  of  religion.  "  I  am  the  bread  of 
Hfe."  "I  am  the  light  of  the  world."  '^  I, 
if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all 
men  unto  Me."  "  I  am  come,  not  to  condemn 
the  world,  but  to  save  the  world."  "  I  am  the 
way,  and  the  truth,  and  the  life."  Now,  Jesus 
does  not  say,  as  other  masters,  "  I  show  you 
the  way,  and  the  truth,  and  the  life."  He  came, 
as  has  often  been  said,  not  to  proclaim  a  mes- 
sage, but  that  there  might  be  a  message  to  pro- 
claim. Jesus  Christ  did  not  only  preach  the 
gospel;  He  was  the  gospel.  In  this  thing  Jesus 
sets  His  religion  ofif  against  all  other  religions. 
Buddhism,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out,  is 
the  religion  of  a  method;  Mohammedanism  is 
the  religion  of  a  book;  Christianity  is  the  re- 
ligion of  a  person.  It  is  Jesus.  Whosoever 
enters  it,  enters  Him;  whosoever  would  learn  its 
lessons,  learns  Him;  whosoever  would  feed 
upon  its  nourishment  eats  His  body  and  drinks 
His  blood.  "  I  am,"  said  Jesus,  "  the  way,  and 
the  truth,  and  the  life." 

Now  we  cannot,  at  the  very  outset,  over-em- 
phasise the  significance  of  Jesus  Christ's  having 
declared  that  He  was  Christianity.  In  some  of 
our  colleges  we  organise  ourselves  into  Chris- 
tian bodies  on  the  basis  of  some  common  spiritual 


SATISFACTION    OF    THE    HEART     209 

sympathies;  all  the  people  who  have  any  admir- 
ing regard  for  religion  are  affiliated  on  one  com- 
mon basis  and  in  one  common  organisation. 
Our  religion  degenerates  into  a  common  ethical 
sympathy,  into  the  adoption  of  a  few  indefinite 
religious  principles,  and  has  divorced  itself  from 
a  person,  from  loyalty  to  the  supreme  and  unique 
claims  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  Now  Chris- 
tianity was  Christ  to  Paul.  I  cannot  conceive 
of  Paul's  being  able  to  understand  any  kind  of 
Christianity  that  was  not  Christ,  that  did  not 
root  itself  in  Christ,  that  did  not  lead  on  to 
Christ,  that  did  not  guard  as  with  anxious  jeal- 
ousy the  deity  and  the  uniqueness  of  Christ. 
And  the  hymns  of  Christendom  find  all  of  Chris- 
tianity also  in  Him. 

"  Oh,  Thou  art  all  to  me ! 
Nothing  to  please  I  see, 
Nothing  apart  from  Thee, 
Jesus,  my  Lord!'* 

"Thou,  O  Christ,  art  all  I  want; 
All  I  need  in  Thee  I  find." 

It  was  this  sense  of  the  indissoluble  relation- 
ship between  the  Christian  faith  and  Christ  Him- 
self that  led  Robertson  of  Brighton,  for  example, 
to  say,  as  he  talked  to  working  men  in  the  town 
hall  of  Brighton  regarding  infidel  publications, 
"  I  refuse  to  permit  discussion  respecting  the 
love  which   a  Christian  man  bears  to  his  Re- 


210     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

deemer,  a  love  more  delicate  far  than  the  love 
which  was  ever  borne  to  sister  or  the  adoration 
with  which  he  regards  his  God,  a  reverence  more 
sacred  than  ever  man  bore  to  mother."  When 
Jesus,  standing  in  the  midst  of  His  disciples, 
told  them  that  He  was  everything,  He  made  it 
impossible  for  all  time  for  any  disciple  of  His 
ever  to  compromise  His  claims  or  ever  to  sur- 
render one  whit  of  that  which  Jesus  Christ  alone 
is,  "  I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth,  and  the  life." 

Let  us  think  a  little  while  on  these  things  that 
Jesus  Christ  said  He  was.  "  I  am  the  way," 
He  says.  What  way?  He  goes  on  in  this  same 
verse  to  indicate  what  way  He  means,  for  "  no 
man,"  He  says,  "  cometh  to  the  Father  but  by 
Me.  I  am  He  who  opens  to  men  the  way  to  the 
Father  and  the  Father's  heart."  Now  apart 
from  Jesus  Christ  human  history  Is  one  thing; 
with  Jesus  Christ  human  history  is  a  different 
thing.  Omit  the  incarnation  and  human  history 
reads  in  the  terms  of  man's  search  after  God, 
and  His  only  answer  is  silence  on  the  Father's 
lips,  whatever  is  in  the  Father's  heart;  with 
Jesus  Christ  human  history  reads  in  the  terms 
of  God's  search  after  man,  with  pathetic  pleas 
upon  the  Father's  lips  and  pathetic  love  in  the 
Father's  heart.  "  I  am,"  says  Jesus,  "  the  way 
home  for  men  to  the  heart  of  the  Father." 

Now,  as  Augustine  says,  men  must  find  that 
way,  because  we  were  made  for  God  and  we  can 
never  rest  until  at  last  we  find  our  resting  place 


SATISFACTION    OF    THE    HEART     211 

in  Him.  And  all  human  history,  the  whole  tale 
of  the  best  experience  of  men,  is  but  the  confes- 
sion of  their  longing  after  the  way  home  to  the 
Father's  heart.  Those  of  you  who  have  read  the 
"  Life  and  Letters  of  Romanes  "  will  recall  the 
picture  there  of  the  discontent,  the  utter  rest- 
lessness of  heart  of  the  man  who  had  once  rested 
on  the  Father's  arms  and  who  had  experienced 
the  vision  of  the  Father's  face,  and  who  has 
gone  out  but  must  come  back  again  to  the 
Father's  love.  Many  a  man  and  many  a  woman 
feels  a  hunger  that  will  not  be  appeased  until  at 
last  it  feeds  itself  upon  the  Son  of  God  who  is 
the  true  bread  come  down  out  of  heaven.  The 
knowledge  of  God,  which  Jesus  Christ  intends 
to  give  us  through  Himself  as  the  way,  is  the 
goal  of  all  our  irrepressible  human  longing. 

You  remember  the  character  of  Calista  in 
one  of  Cardinal  Newman's  finest  tales,  the  story 
that  contains  the  wonderful  picture  of  the  locust 
plague  in  northern  Africa,  and  her  cry,  "  Oh, 
that  I  could  find  Him !  On  the  right  hand 
and  on  the  left  I  grope  and  touch  Him  not. 
Why  dost  Thou  fight  against  me,  O  First  and 
only  Fair?"  And  you  remember  the  same 
longing  expressed  in  one  of  Mr.  Matthew  Ar- 
nold's essays,  in  which  he  quotes — Mr.  Hutton 
says  he  could  not  have  been  the  first  to  use 
them — the  words  of  Israel :  "  Thou,  O  Eternal, 
are  the  thing  that  I  long  for.  Thou  art  my 
hope,  even  from  my  youth."     And  you  remem- 


212     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

ber  the  passionate  expressions  of  this  longing 
in  the  Psalms:  ''As  the  hart  panteth  after  the 
water  brooks,  so  panteth  my  soul  after  Thee, 

0  God.  My  soul  thirsteth  for  God,  for  the  liv- 
ing God.     O  God,  Thou  art  my  God ;  early  will 

1  seek  Thee;  my  soul  thirsteth  for  Thee,  my 
flesh  longeth  for  Thee  in  a  dry  and  thirsty  land 
where  no  water  is."  And  nothing  appeals  to 
us  quite  so  much,  I  think,  as  we  read  the  lives 
of  good  men  as  those  great  experiences  in  which 
they  have  entered  at  last  into  the  fulness  of  the 
consciousness  of  God.  Is  there  one  of  us  whose 
heart  does  not  hunger  for  such  a  satisfaction  in 
God  as  this?  How  shall  we  find  this  longed-for 
way  to  Him?  I,  says  Jesus,  am  the  way.  In 
Christ  we  find  it,  home. 

"  It  shall  be 
A  face  like  My  face  that  receives  thee; 
A  man  like  to  Me 

Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by  forever; 
A  hand  like  this  hand 

Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee. 
See  the  Christ  stand." 

When  our  hearts  long  for  the  way,  Jesus 
Christ  stands  before  us  saying  to  us,  "  I  am  the 
Way,  the  Way  home  for  the  lost  child,  the  Way 
that  ties  the  two  worlds  together,  the  Way  from 
the  seen  into  the  unseen,  the  Way  from  the 
present  into  the  everlasting,  the  Way  out  of  our 
restlessness  into  the  perfect  rest  of  God,  the 
Way   that  can  never   weary  or  grow   old."     I 


SATISFACTION    OF    THE    HEART     213 

like  the  phrase  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
"a  new  and  living  way,"  a  way  that  we  can 
never  tire  of,  a  way  in  which  each  of  us  shall 
be  finding  in  Jesus  Christ  every  day  some  new 
and  fresh  discovery  of  love  and  be  resting  our- 
selves in  His  inexhaustibleness  Who  said,  "  I  am 
the  way." 

The  early  Church  made  a  noble  use  of  this 
word,  and  it  became  a  synonym  of  Christianity, 
so  that  Luke  tells  us  when  Paul  set  out  from 
Jerusalem  to  Damascus,  with  letters  hunting 
for  Christians,  it  was  that  he  might  find  any 
who  were  of  "  this  Way/'  and  bring  them  bound 
to  Jerusalem.  We  read  that  in  the  city  of  Ephe- 
sus  no  small  stir  was  aroused  regarding  "  the 
Way  " ;  of  Felix,  that  he  was  better  acquainted 
than  others  with  "  this  Way,"  and  we  hear  Paul 
himself  saying,  that  in  those  old  days  "  I  myself 
persecuted  those  who  were  of  the  Way  unto 
death."  Christianity  is  not  a  terminus:  it  is  a 
progress.  Jesus  Christ  Himself  is  not  an  at- 
tainable end;  He  is  a  route;  He  Himself  is 
fathomless  and  inexhaustible,  and  when  once  we 
have  set  our  feet  in  His  way,  He  leads  us  on  and 
on  forever  to  larger  and  richer  things  every  day, 
and  to  an  end  that  never  is  to  be  found.  "  I," 
says  He,  "  am  the  way." 

"  I  am  the  truth,"  says  Christ ;  "  the  gathering 
up  into  one  of  all  that  is  eternal  and  absolute 
in  this  changing  world.  Primarily  I  am  the 
truth  about  God,  and  the  way  to  Him,  but,  more 


214.     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

than  that,  I  am  all  the  truth  that  men  need 
know  to  live  by  in  this  mortal  life  of  theirs." 
Mark  once  again  the  calm  assurance  of  Jesus; 
He  speaks  as  though  all  the  problems  of  life 
were  perfectly  clear  and  simple  to  Him.  I  heard 
a  very  suggestive  paper  a  little  while  ago  read 
before  a  large  gathering  of  Christian  men,  in 
which  the  writer  took  the  ground  that  we  must 
shift  the  whole  line  of  Christian  work  and  teach- 
ing, that  old  problems  that  a  generation  ago 
you  could  take  for  granted  as  settled  are  now 
regarded  as  open  problems,  such,  he  said,  as, 
Is  there  a  God?  or  Is  there  an  immortal  life? 
Perhaps  there  was  more  or  less  truth  in  this 
view;  at  any  rate,  we  are  ever  perplexing  our- 
selves over  many  questions  that  seemed  to  Jesus 
to  have  been  just  as  clear  as  the  sunlight,  never 
to  have  been  confused  in  his  mind  by  a  soli- 
tary doubt !  "  I  am  the  truth,"  He  says.  Men 
debate  as  to  whether  there  is  any  truth,  or  as  to 
whether,  if  there  is  truth,  we  can  ever  know  we 
have  found  it,  while  Jesus  stands  before  us  all 
the  time  telling  us  that  He  Himself  is  the  truth. 
He  is  the  truth  about  man.  He  tells  us  what 
man  is,  and  what  man  may  be.  We  measure 
ourselves  over  against  Him,  and  for  the  first 
time  we  realise  ourselves.  We  hold  ourselves 
aloof  from  Him,  and  our  ideals  seem  glorious, 
and  our  attainment  passable,  and  our  sins  venial. 
We  measure  ourselves  against  Christ,  and  we 
abhor  ourselves  in  dust  and  ashes.     We  stand 


SATISFACTION    OF    THE    HEART     215 

up  face  to  face  with  Him  who  is  the  truth  about 
man,  and  for  the  first  time  we  understand  what 
we  are ;  all  the  misery  and  the  flaw  of  our  lives, 
all  the  shame  and  the  loathsomeness  of  our 
shortcomings.  And  we  look  up  into  His  face 
once  again,  and  we  see  there  not  alone  what  we 
are,  but  what  we  may  be.  We  hear  Him  speak- 
ing of  Himself  as  the  Son  of  Man ;  we  hear  Him 
telling  us  that  the  Father  sent  Him  to  show  what 
in  the  Father's  mind  we  are,  and  that  we  may 
hide  ourselves  in  Him.  Jesus  Christ  is  to  us 
the  truth  about  ourselves  as  we  are  and  as  we 
may  be. 

He  is  to  us  the  truth  about  God.  Men  com- 
plain, a  large  and  growing  class  of  men,  of  our 
anthropomorphic  statements  about  God.  Can 
we  think  of  Him  otherwise?  We  know  our- 
selves only  and  have  none  but  anthropomorphic 
metaphors  in  which  to  speak  of  personality  or 
being.  And  Jesus  Christ  comes  to  us  as  a  man 
to  make  God  plain  to  us  and  vindicate  once  and 
forever  our  human  ways  of  speaking  about  God. 
As  good  Pascal  said  years  ago :  "  Not  only  do 
we  know  God  by  Jesus  Christ  alone,  but  we 
know  ourselves  by  Jesus  Christ  alone.  Apart 
from  Jesus  Christ  we  know  not  what  is  our  life, 
nor  our  death,  nor  God,  nor  ourselves."  We 
are  lost  in  our  thought  even  until  we  stand  be- 
fore Him  Who,  in  that  upper  room  before  His 
confused  disciples,  said,  "  I  am  the  way ;  I  am 
the  truth.'' 


216    THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

Notice,  once  again,  He  does  not  say  that  He 
teaches  the  truth.  We  speak  about  "  Christ  and 
other  masters,"  about  Jesus  as  a  teacher  of  truth. 
Jesus  Christ  is  Himself  the  truth.  As  Thomas 
Erskine,  with  all  his  peculiar  views,  wrote  to 
Lady  Elgin,  "  I  believe  all  notions  of  religion, 
howsoever  true,  to  be  absolutely  worthless. 
Christ  is  far  above  all  doctrines  about  Him, 
however  true.  Christ  is  the  truth.  A  doctrine 
that  can  be  separated  from  Himself  is  a  vanity 
and  a  deception."  And  those  of  us  who  think 
that  we  can  cultivate  the  religious  life  while  we 
stultify  Christ's  claims,  those  of  us  who  think 
that  we  can  cherish  the  sympathies  of  Jesus 
while  we  deny  the  character  of  Jesus,  are  simply 
forgetting  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  the  teacher 
of  a  separable  truth,  that  Jesus  Christ  Himself  is 
a  personal,  and  living,  and  incarnate  truth.  To 
be  sure  He  did  come  to  reveal  truth  to  men.  In 
the  case  even  of  any  of  us  who  are  not  Christians, 
all  our  ideas  of  God  are  borrowed  from  Christ, 
all  our  true  ideas  of  human  nature  are  borrowed 
from  Christ,  all  our  worthy  standards  and  con- 
ceptions of  life  are  borrowed  from  Christ.  Even 
to  those  who  have  not  taken  Jesus  Christ  as 
Himself  the  truth,  Jesus  is  the  teacher  of  truth. 
What  He  said  that  day  in  answer  to  Pilate's 
taunt,  "  Art  Thou  a  king,  then  ?  "  "  Thou  sayest 
that  I  am  a  king.  For  this  purpose  I  was  born, 
and  for  this  purpose  came  I  into  the  world, 
that  I  might  bear  witness  to  the  truth,  and  he 


SATISFACTION    OF    THE    HEART     217 

that  is  of  the  truth  hears  My  voice,"  is  true  still. 
Jesus  Christ  has  come  to  teach  men  truth,  and 
if  honest  men  and  women  in  Christian  lands 
would  strip  out  of  their  life  and  thought  the 
truth  that  they  owe  to  Jesus  Christ,  they  would 
see  instantly  how  poor  and  inadequate  the  life 
and  the  thought  that  are  left  to  them  are,  and 
how  utterly  and  absolutely  they  stand  alone  in 
the  truth  that  Jesus  Christ  is.  "The  word  be- 
came flesh,"  says  John,  "  and  dwelt  among  us, 
full  of  grace  and  truth."  O  perplexed  heart, 
that  questions  sometimes  as  to  where  truth  is 
and  knows  not  where  its  foundations  are  to  be 
found,  that,  perhaps,  many  times  has  sympathised 
with  poor  James  Thomson's  wail  about 

"The  sense  that  every  struggle  brings  defeat, 
Because  fate  holds  no  prize  to  crown  success; 
That  all  the  oracles  are  dumb  or  cheat 

Because  they  have  no  secret  to  express. 
And  none  can  pierce  the  great  dark  veil  uncertain. 
Because  there  is  no  light  beyond  the  curtain, 
But  all  is  vanity  and  nothingness," 

remember  that  One  has  come  out  from  behind 
that  curtain.  Himself  full  of  grace  and  truth,  to 
say  to  men  perplexed  and  women  distressed,  "  I 
am  the  way ;  I  am  the  truth." 

"  I  am  the  life,"  added  Christ,  "  the  way,  the 
truth,  and  the  life."  The  death  which  cast  its 
shadow  over  the  eleven  and  over  Himself  should 
itself  be  swallowed  up  in  life.  Standing  there 
beneath  the  shadow  of  His  cross,  before  the 


218     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

Open  grave  over  which  the  stone  was  to  be  rolled 
to  hide  His  burial,  Jesus  Christ,  the  frailest  life 
in  the  world,  declared  to  men,  "  I  am  the  life." 
All  the  longing  of  our  day  is  answered  by  this 
assertion  of  Christ's.  The  term  "  life  "  has  be- 
come the  catch-word  of  our  time.  Once  and 
again  men  speak  about  it  who  have  no  notion 
whatever  of  what  Jesus  Christ  meant  by  life, 
who  simply  mean  by  life  some  expansion  of 
tastes,  some  enlargement  of  one's  range  of 
vision,  some  greater  reach  of  sympathies,  life 
that  is  to  end  when  conscious  being  ends,  which 
will  be  when  the  body  lies  down  and  dies.  There 
are  scarcely  any  lines  more  quoted  than  the  lines 
of  Tennyson's,  in  which  he  gives  voice  to  this 
longing  of  our  day: 

"Tis  life  wherever  our  nerves  are  scant; 
Oh,  life,  not  death,  for  which  we  pant, 
More  life  and  fuller  that  we  want." 

Life  is  the  great  word.  Not  love  or  truth  or 
duty,  but  Hfe.  The  new  theologies  build  around 
it.  The  poets  and  the  poetesses  sing  of  it, 
though  they  do  not  mean  what  Christ  meant. 
We  cannot  suppress,  if  we  would,  dissatisfaction 
with  contraction,  with  narrowness.  We  hun- 
ger for  perfect  energy,  for  perfect  liberty  to  use 
that  energy,  for  boundless  scope  of  life,  for  end- 
less development.  The  way  a  little  child  shrinks 
from  being  shut  up  in  the  dark  is  only  the  indi- 
cation of  the  way  all  our  life  covets  liberty  and 


SATISFACTION    OF    THE    HEART     219 

freedom.  It  struggles  frantically  against  that 
sense  of  contraction,  of  narrowness,  of  limita- 
tion, of  death  which  comes  to  it  in  confinement 
in  the  gloom.  Our  souls  rise  up  in  revolt 
against  the  sense  of  termination,  against  the  feel- 
ing of  narrowness,  against  anything  that  shuts 
them  out  from  perfect  liberty  of  destiny.  What 
Tennyson  writes  about  wages  is  the  cry  of  the 
soul  of  each  of  us: 

"Glory  of  warrior,  glory  of  orator,  glory  of  song, 
Paid  by  a  voice  flying  by  to  be  lost  on  an  endless 
sea; 
Glory  of  virtue,  to  fight,  to   struggle,  to   right  the 
vi^rong. 
Nay,  but  she  aimed  not  at  glory — no  lover  of  glory 
she: 
Give  her  the  glory  of  going  on,  and  still  to  be. 

"The  wages  of  sin  is  death;  if  the  wages  of  virtue  be 
dust, 
Would  she  have  had  heart  to  endure  for  the  life 
of  the  worm  and  the  fly? 
She  desires  no  isles  of  the  blest,  no  quiet  seats  of  the 
just, 
To  rest  in  a  golden  grove,  or  to  bask  in  a  summer 
sky: 
Give  her  the  glory  of  going  on,  and  not  to  die." 


Our  souls  rise  up  in  war  against  the  thought 
of  ending,  and  as  they  struggle  with  their  lim- 
itations and  their  chains,  the  great  Deliverer 
comes,  as  He  stood  that  night  before  the  little 


220     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

group  shocked  with  the  sorrow  of  His  depar- 
ture, and  says  to  us,  "  I  am  the  life."  All  that 
longing  for  life  which  even  the  narrowest  and 
smallest  human  soul  can  never  suppress,  Jesus 
Christ  promises  to  complete  and  to  fulfil.  He 
Himself  is  ready  to  link  us  to  that  supernatural 
connection  which  means  life  divine.  There  is 
no  physical  difference  visible  in  the  life  that 
has  accepted  Christ  and  the  life  which  has  re- 
jected Him,  or  that  has  not  yet  taken  Him  in  His 
fulness,  but  the  eye  of  God  sees  a  difference  as 
great  between  noonday  and  midnight.  The  soul 
that  has  accepted  Jesus  Christ  is  tied  to  God, 
the  living  God,  with  ties  that  cannot  be  broken, 
with  all  the  channels  of  intercourse  open  in  the 
fulness  of  their  wealth  and  treasure  between  it 
and  God,  the  living  God.  "  I  am  the  life,"  says 
Jesus  Christ,  "  the  resurrection  and  the  life ;  so 
that  he  that  believeth  on  Me,  though  he  were 
dead,  yet  shall  he  live  again;  and  he  that  liveth 
and  believeth  in  Me  shall  never  die."  "  I  am  the 
way,  and  the  truth,  and  the  life." 

What  an  unsatisfied,  discontented  lot  ours 
would  be  if  there  were  no  such  voice  as 
this  speaking  in  our  ears,  out  of  the  ineffable 
life,  a  message  of  real  life  to  our  dead  souls,  "  I 
am  the  life."  How  weary,  and  wretched,  I  say, 
it  would  be  if  what  Mr.  Arnold  has  written  in 
"  Obermann   Once   More  "  were  true : 

"That  gracious  child,  that  thorn-crowned  man, 
He  lived  while  we  believed, 


SATISFACTION    OF    THE    HEART     221 

"*  While  we  believed  on  earth  He  went 
And  open  stood  His  grave. 
Men  called  from  chamber,  church  and  tent, 
And  Christ  was  by  to  save. 

"  Now  He  is  dead ;  far  hence  He  lies, 
In  the  lone  Syrian  town, 
And  on  His  grave  with  shining  eyes 
The  Syrian  stars  look  down." 

"  I  am  the  wilderness,  and  falsehood,  and 
death,"  Jesus  said ?  Oh,  no !  "I  am  the  way, 
and  the  truth,  and  the  life."  The  way  home 
to  the  Father's  heart,  the  truth  for  your  per- 
plexed souls  to  find,  the  life  to  satisfy  you 
utterly ;  "  I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth,  and  the 
life." 

Oh,  my  friends,  will  we  not  let  Jesus  Christ  be 
Himself  to  us?  Why  will  we  insist  on  taking 
only  a  fraction  of  His  gifts,  while  he  offers  us 
in  Himself  a  satisfying  way,  a  satisfying  truth,  a 
satisfying  life?  Shall  we  not  answer  rather  a 
Kempis's  appeal  in  the  third  book  of  his  "  Imi- 
tation"?— 

"  My  son,  the  more  thou  canst  go  out  of  thy- 
self, so  much  the  more  wilt  thou  be  able  to  enter 
into  Me. 

"  As  to  desire  no  outward  thing  produceth  in- 
ward peace,  so  the  forsaking  of  ourselves  in- 
wardly joineth  us  unto  God. 

"  I  will  have  thee  learn  perfect  resignation  of 
thyself  to  My  will,  without  contradiction  or 
complaint. 


222     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

"Follow  thou  Me.  I  AM  the  way,  the  truth, 
and  the  life.  Without  the  way  there  is  no  going ; 
without  the  truth  there  is  no  knowing;  without 
the  life  there  is  no  living.  I  am  the  way,  which 
thou  oughtest  to  follow;  the  truth,  which  thou 
oughtest  to  trust;  the  life,  which  thou  oughtest 
to  hope  for. 

"  I  AM  the  way  inviolable,  the  truth  infal- 
lible, the  life  that  cannot  end. 

"  I  AM  the  straightest  way,  the  highest  truth, 
the  true  life,  the  blessed  life,  the  Hfe  uncreated. 

"  If  thou  remain  in  My  way,  thou  shalt  know 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  thee  free,  and 
thou  shalt  lay  hold  on  eternal  life." 


XII 

THE  UNIQUENESS  OF  OUR  LORD  AND 
MASTER  JESUS  CHRIST 

IT  is  a  very  significant  fact  that  in  our 
thoughts  about  men  we  are  unable  to  come 
to  the  Ufe  of  Christ  without  an  altered  feel- 
ing. This  is  true  even  if  we  have  been  thinking 
of  religious  men,  of  men  to  whom  we  owe  some 
debt  of  the  deepest  character,  toward  whom  our 
temper  is  naturally  reverent.  As  we  pass  one 
after  another  of  these  men  before  our  eyes,  and 
our  gaze  at  last  falls  on  Christ,  no  matter  how 
loving  our  thoughts  may  have  been,  they  are 
touched  with  a  new  tenderness  and  our  rever- 
ence deepens  into  awe.  And  this  is  equally  true 
if  we  turn  from  the  thought  of  men  as  religious 
leaders  and  think  of  them  just  as  men  who  have 
swayed  the  minds  and  wills  of  their  fellow  men. 
We  cannot  think  about  Jesus  Christ  in  any  such 
list  of  men  with  the  same  feeling  with  which 
we  think  of  others.  There  is  not  one  other 
great  leader  about  whom  we  cannot  speak 
humorously  or  jocosely  if  we  wish,  or  with  a 
little  pleasantry,  but  we  cannot  speak  in  that  way 
about    our    Lord.      When    we    come    to    Him 


224     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

It  is  as  though  a  still  voice  whispered  in  our 
ears,  Put  off  thy  shoes  from  off  thy  feet,  for  the 
place  whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground. 

But  someone  may  say :  "  We  have  simply 
grown  up  in  a  Christian  atmosphere,  speaking  a 
language  that  is  infiltrated  with  Christian  ideas 
and  terms.  What  we  have  inherited  from  those 
who  went  before  us  makes  it  impossible  for  us 
to  speak  lightly  of  One  Who  was  so  dear  to 
them,  however  our  thoughts  differ  from  their 
thoughts  about  Him."  But  it  is  true  even  of 
men  who  have  shaken  themselves  free  from  the 
Influence  of  education  and  association  that  they 
feel  this  same  spell  when  they  come  to  think 
and  to  speak  of  Jesus  Christ.  Mr.  John  Morley 
surely  has  done,  as  far  as  any  man  can,  the  work 
of  separating  himself  from  the  external  influ- 
ences of  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  lives  so  far 
as  thoughts  about  Jesus  Christ  are  concerned, 
and  in  his  essay  on  the  book  entitled  "  Super- 
natural Religion"  he  says  he  might  say  some 
things  derogatory  of  Jesus  if  he  wished,  but 
that  he  will  not  say  them.  If  they  are  true 
things,  why  does  he  not  say  them?  If  there 
are  some  things  that  he  knows  about  Jesus 
that  other  people  do  not  believe  to  be  true  about 
Jesus,  why  should  he  not  say  them  so  that  other 
people  may  have  their  opinions  about  Jesus  cor- 
rected? And  it  is  said  that  when  Renan  pub- 
lished the  popular  edition  of  his  great  work  on 
Jesus  he  deliberately  omitted  from  It  those  pas- 


UNIQUENESS    OF   OUR    LORD      225 

sages  which  had  been  most  unkind  and  unsympa- 
thetic in  their  reference  to  Christ,  because  he 
said  it  was  not  necessary  to  tell  those  true  things 
to  the  people.  Why  did  they  deal  with  Jesus 
in  this  way?  If  it  had  been  Napoleon  or  Julius 
Caesar,  Mr.  Morley  and  Renan  would  not  have 
felt  so,  but  they  did  feel  so  about  Jesus  Christ. 
It  is  very  strange. 

And  the  strangeness  of  it  is  accentuated  when 
we  stop  to  reflect  upon  the  scantiness  of  what 
we  know  about  Jesus.  Here  was  a  short  life 
of  thirty-three  years,  and  of  the  first  twelve 
years  of  it  we  know  only  one  or  two  or  three 
incidents.  The  next  eighteen  years  are  an  utter 
blank,  and  of  the  last  three  years  of  it  the  doings 
and  the  sayings  of  a  few  days  only  are 
chronicled.  We  think  sometimes  that  the 
Gospels  tell  us  what  Jesus  did  every  day,  but  if 
you  enumerate  all  the  different  days  of  Christ's 
life  with  which  the  Gospels  deal  you  will  find 
that  they  show  us  Christ  in  a  very  small  portion 
of  His  public  life.  How  small  is  the  volume  of 
what  has  been  told  us  about  Jesus !  You  can 
read  it  all  through  in  one  afternoon,  and  yet 
there  is  not  one  of  us  who  would  undertake, 
short  of  many  days,  to  explain  the  significance  of 
Christ's  life.  Men  would  venture  to  give  in 
fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  the  important  lessons 
of  Napoleon's  life,  or  of  the  life  of  JuHus  Caesar, 
about  both  of  whom  we  know  much  more  in  vol- 
ume of  material  than  we  do  about  Jesus,  but 


226     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

none  of  us  would  attempt  that  in  the  Hfe  of 
Christ. 

Our  feeling  about  Christ  becomes  more  sig- 
nificant still  if  we  turn  from  thinking  of  the 
scantiness  of  the  records  of  our  Lord's  life  to 
think  of  the  insignificance  and  obscurity  of  that 
life  itself.  What  did  the  great  world  in  which 
He  lived  care  for  Him?  What  did  it  know 
about  Him  ?  Away  off  in  a  remote  and  despised 
province  of  the  Roman  empire,  He  lived  and 
died,  making  a  little  disturbance  locally,  the 
news  of  which  I  suppose  never  reached  the  ears 
of  anyone  who  cared  for  it  at  all  in  Rome.  What 
a  simple  unknown  life  it  was,  a  peasant  lad,  a 
tradesman,  uneducated  according  to  the  facti- 
tious standards  of  His  day,  going  about  for  a 
few  years  saying  words  to  the  people,  gathering 
a  little  company  of  friends  about  Him  and  influ- 
encing them,  doing  kind  and  loving  things,  and 
then  dying  on  a  cross  between  two  thieves.  That 
was  all,  and  yet  you  and  I  cannot  think  of  it 
without  trembling  lips  and  a  thrill  in  our  hearts. 

Why  should  it  be  that  in  this  way  Jesus  is 
singled  out  from  all  other  persons  who  have  ever 
walked  about  on  this  earth?  I  think  one  chief 
reason  is  found  in  the  claims  that  He  made  for 
Himself  and  that  were  made  for  Him.  Take  His 
own  simple  declarations  about  Himself :  "  I  am 
the  good  shepherd,"  "  I  am  the  door  of  the 
sheep,"  "  I  am  the  true  vine,"  "  I  am  the  light  of 
the  world,"  "  I  am  the  bread  of  life,"  and  "  The 


UNIQUENESS    OF    OUR    LORD      227 

bread  which  I  will  give  is  My  flesh,  which  I  will 
give  for  the  life  of  the  world."  Of  course  it  is 
possible  to  say  that  these  are  only  bold  oriental 
metaphors,  and  that  they  seem  to  imply  more 
than  they  actually  contained  in  the  thought  of 
Jesus,  but  you  can  turn  to  other  things  that 
Jesus  said  and  find  that  these  metaphors  not  only 
did  not  contain  more  than  the  truth,  but  barely 
hint  at  truth  which  on  every  side  overflows  them 
and  which  the  metaphors  cannot  contain.  What 
did  He  say  about  His  relations  to  the  Father? 
"  The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you,  I  speak  not 
of  myself,  but  the  Father,  which  dwelleth  in 
Me,  He  doeth  the  works."  More  than  that :  "  I 
am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life;  no  man 
Cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  Me."  And  more 
than  that:  "I  and  the  Father  are  one,"  "He 
that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

But  there  are  many  who  say  that  all  these 
declarations  of  Jesus  and  these  claims  that  He 
makes  are  contained  in  one  Gospel,  and  that 
that  Gospel's  authorship  is  disputed,  and  that 
the  accuracy  of  its  representations  of  Christ's 
words  is  very  questionable.  Fall  back  on  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  if  you  wish.  The  people 
who  throw  out  the  Gospel  of  John,  who  discredit 
the  claims  of  Christ,  who  try  to  pare  down  what 
is  said  about  Jesus's  deity  by  the  evangelists, 
exalt  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  But  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  makes  its  own  claims  for 
Jesus  Christ.     The  very  note  of  authority  in  the 


228     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

beatitudes  is  a  divine  claim.  Who  is  this  young 
man  Who  stands  up  saying  who  the  persons  are 
to  whom  the  kingdom  of  God  shall  belong? 
Who  is  this  man  from  Galilee  Who  dares  to 
declare  by  whom  the  whole  earth  is  to  be  pos- 
sessed, Who  sets  on  one  side  all  the  teachers  of 
the  Jewish  nation,  and  stands  Himself  on  the 
other  side,  and  says,  "  Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath 
been  said  by  them  of  old  time  so  and  so,  but  I 
say  unto  you,"  and  Who  declares  that  at  the 
last  day  of  all  not  every  man  that  says  to  Him, 
"  Lord,  Lord,"  shall  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  but  the  man  who  has  done  His  Father's 
will  ?  "  In  that  day  /  will  say  unto  you,  Depart 
from  Me ;  /  never  knew  you ! "  And  Jesus 
closes  the  sermon  with  a  declaration  as  to  whose 
are  the  stable  lives  and  whose  the  unstable :  "  He 
that  heareth  My  words  and  doeth  them  not,  is 
like  the  man  that  built  his  house  upon  the  sand." 
Jesus  Christ  said  marvellous  things  about  Him- 
self. 

But  is  it  not  even  more  marvellous  that,  hav- 
ing said  them,  people  think  Him  modest?  If 
one  were  forced  to  lay  his  finger  on  one  single 
characteristic  of  Christ  that  is  universally  ac- 
knowledged, and  that  is  an  unconscious  confes- 
sion of  His  Divinity  by  every  one  who  acknowl- 
edges this  characteristic  in  Him,  it  is  His 
humility.  For  Jesus  Christ  was  the  most  boast- 
ful, the  most  arrogant  person  who  ever  lived 
if  He  was  not  Divine,    "I  am  the  way,  the 


UNIQUENESS    OF    OUR    LORD      229 

truth,  and  the  Hfe."  "  I  and  the  Father  are 
one."  "  No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but 
by  Me."  What  modesty  or  humlUty  can  be 
found  in  those  words  if  they  are  not  true? 
Grant  that  Jesus  Christ  was  what  He  claimed 
to  be,  and  He  is  the  humblest  and  most  lowly- 
minded  person  who  ever  walked  about  among 
men.  But,  if  Jesus  was  not  what  He  claimed  to 
be,  how  does  it  come  that  the  whole  heart  of  man 
turns  to  Him  and  believes  that  He  spoke  the 
truth  when  He  said,  "  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in 
heart "  ? 

I  am  not  speaking,  now,  with  any  special  pur- 
pose to  convince  any  who  may  not  be  persuaded 
of  our  Lord's  deity.  He  rises  up  before  our  lives, 
and  we  know  that  what  He  has  done  there  none 
but  God  could  do.  He  stands  out  before  our 
hearts,  and  what  He  is  to  us  we  know  that  none 
but  God  could  be.  But  I  would  speak  of  some 
things  in  Jesus  that  were  most  divinely  human 
in  Him,  and  which,  one  might  almost  say,  those 
people  who  believe  least  in  His  deity  are  under 
chiefest  obligation  to  repeat  in  themselves.  For 
that  is  the  difficulty  in  which  many  of  those 
who  do  not  regard  Jesus  Christ  as  the  strong 
Son  of  God  involve  themselves.  If  Jesus  Christ 
was  what  He  was  just  as  a  man,  then  these  are 
the  very  people  who  are  under  chiefest  obligation 
to  repeat  those  qualities  in  Jesus  which  they  al- 
lege it  is  possible  for  a  mere  man  to  display. 
Those  of  us  who  regard  Jesus  Christ  as  God 


230     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

can  believe  that  there  were  some  things  in  Him 
difficult  for  us  to  attain. 

Think  for  a  moment,  first  of  all,  of  Christ's 
sincere  directness  of  character.  There  are 
sinuous  people,  furtive,  indirect,  disingenu- 
ously reticent,  whose  life  does  not  ring 
genuinely  true,  who  speak  to  you  with  an 
averted  eye,  who  do  not  carry  with  them 
the  tone  of  a  robust  sincere  integrity  of  life. 
Jesus  was  not  that  kind.  There  was  a 
large  ingenuous  candour  about  Him,  a  direct 
sincerity  and  reality  in  His  life  that  made  Jesus 
Himself  the  standard  of  truth  in  character  in 
the  little  band  of  disciples  in  whose  midst  He 
stood  and  in  human  life  since  down  to  this  day. 

We  see  the  sincere  directness  of  Jesus  in  His 
methods  of  work.  He  was  no  manipulator.  He 
dealt  not  with  institutions,  but  with  life.  His 
disciples  were  pressing  Him  constantly  to  be- 
come an  institutionalist.  They  pointed  out  to 
Him  the  risk  He  was  running  of  leaving  His 
kingdom  disorganised.  They  wanted  Him  to 
appoint  the  places,  to  assign  positions  of  author- 
ity, but  Jesus  steadfastly  refused  to  do  so,  and 
died  without  ever  having  accomplished  what  His 
disciples  desired.  He  had  comparatively  little 
interest  in  institutions  as  such ;  He  built  on  the 
life  that  is  back  of  institutions.  He  was  dealing 
not  with  outer  laws,  but  with  inner  principles 
of  life.  His  word  constantly  was  not.  Thou 
shalt  dOj  but,  Thou  shalt  be.     He  does  not  say, 


UNIQUENESS    OF    OUR    LORD      231 

*'  Do  the  perfect  things,  as  your  heavenly  Father 
does  them,"  but  "  Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your 
heavenly  Father  is  perfect." 

Of  course,  from  one  point  of  view  Christ  was 
compelled  to  do  this.  Many  people  appeal  to 
Christ's  example  in  His  attitude  toward  govern- 
ment as  justifying  Christian  men  and  women  in 
holding  aloof  from  political  duty.  They  quote 
His  words,  "  My  kingdom  is  not  of  the  world," 
and  they  point  out  also  how  He  held  Himself 
free  from  any  political  relationships.  He  had 
none,  for  one  thing,  but  the  reason  why  He 
taught  that  His  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world 
was  that  the  only  kingdom  that  will  ever  prevail 
over  this  world  is  a  kingdom  that  is  not  of  it. 
Jesus  would  have  ended  His  ministry  before  He 
did  and  would  have  failed  in  it  before  He  ended 
it  if  He  had  not  pursued  the  principles  that  He 
did  pursue.  Fie  stood  before  the  institution 
of  human  slavery,  and  never  mentioned  it  once 
in  all  His  teaching,  or  spoke  one  word  of  loath- 
ing or  hatred  of  it.  He  simply  taught  that  men 
were  all  children  of  one  God  and  that  justice 
was  to  prevail  among  men.  He  said  to  His 
disciples  when  He  gathered  them  together  on  the 
last  night  of  all,  "  A  new  commandment  give  I 
unto  you,  that  ye  love  one  another."  And  that 
was  the  doom  of  human  slavery.  He  stood  be- 
fore half  of  the  human  race  shut  out  of  its 
rights.  He  never  said  one  word  about  woman's 
equality  with  man,  but  He  never  said  one  thing 


232     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

that  did  not  imply  it.  Pick  out  any  ten  or  a 
dozen  of  Christ's  commands,  and  they  are  not 
masculine  commands ;  they  apply  equally  to  men 
and  women  alike.  And  when  He  exalted 
those  qualities  which  are  the  qualities  of  the 
woman's  heart,  when  He  said  to  men,  "  Come 
unto  me  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy-laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest,  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly 
in  heart,"  Jesus  Christ  made  women  free. 

We  can  see  Christ's  luminous  honesty  and  di- 
rectness in  His  teaching.  I  once  heard  a  law- 
yer in  Pennsylvania,  who  was  one  of  the  most 
successful  lawyers  in  the  state,  speaking  of  how 
the  truth  shone  round  him  often  as  he  stood 
before  a  jury.  "  Sometimes,"  he  said,  ''  I  can  see 
it  flashing,  like  the  lightning  in  the  sky,  around 
my  mind,  or  it  blazes  out  like  the  very  fierce- 
ness of  the  noon,  and  I  am  in  agony  and  fear  lest 
I  cannot  put  it  into  words  which  will  convey 
it  to  the  minds  of  other  men."  There  are 
men  who  cannot  perceive  truth,  and  there 
are  other  men  who  cannot  express  it  after 
they  have  perceived  it.  The  sincere  directness 
of  our  Lord's  character  displayed  itself  in  the 
way  He  spoke  as  never  man  spake,  and  said 
things  that  the  little  children  could  understand, 
that  old  people  who  are  ignorant  can  rest  their 
dear  heads  upon  and  comprehend. 

Are  we  like  Christ  in  His  sincere  directness 
of  character?  How  much  of  deceptiveness 
there  is  in  us,  how  much  of  white  falsehood  in 


UNIQUENESS    OF    OUR    LORD      233 

our  social  conversation,  how  much  of  evil  tinge- 
ing  our  judgments  of  one  another  and  making 
wrong  imaginations  in  the  chambers  of  our  heart ! 
How  much  we  need  to  be  changed  to  be  like 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  the  sincere  purity  of 
His  character  and  of  His  life! 

Think  once  again  of  the  calm  confidence  of 
Jesus.  We  see  it  in  His  pursuit  of  this  method 
of  which  I  have  been  speaking.  Now  this  is 
the  hardest  method  in  the  world  to  pursue.  I 
venture  to  say  that  no  Christian  leader  has  ever 
arisen  without  facing  the  same  temptation  that 
the  disciples  forced  upon  Jesus,  the  temptatiqn 
to  create  a  sect,  to  erect  a  party,  to  build  up  a 
machine.  It  is  one  of  the  temptations  that  con- 
front every  Christian  man,  to  strive  to  do  that, 
rather  than  just  to  let  the  grains  fall  into  the 
ground  and  die  and  trust  the  Lord  of  the  harvest 
to  bring  the  harvest  in  His  own  good  time.  The 
divine  faith  of  Jesus  Christ  is  seen  in  nothing 
else  more  clearly  than  in  His  readiness  to  pursue 
this  plan  of  recklessness  of  result  in  His  pubHc 
work  and  life. 

I  bid  you  think  of  the  significance  of  this  spirit 
of  confidence  in  Jesus.  Who  was  He?  A  man 
with  no  influence  behind  Him,  a  man  command- 
ing no  wealth,  a  man  possessing  none  of  the 
qualities  that  were  supposed  to  be  essential  to 
leadership  in  His  day.  This  man  was  confident. 
Think  of  what  it  was  He  was  confident  about. 
He  proposed  a  project  that  was  universal  when 


234     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

the  world  was  barely  known,  a  small  fraction  of 
it  known  to  His  contemporaries,  a  great  section 
of  it  absolutely  unknown  to  them,  a  project  not 
alone  to  absorb  the  whole  world,  but  to  run 
through  endless  ages  of  time.  No  mere  man 
sits  down  before  a  perpetual  project;  no  man 
proposes  a  universal  dominion.  A  man  from 
Galilee,  out  of  which  arises  no  prophet,  proposes 
to  establish  a  universal  and  an  eternal  kingdom ! 
And  mark  the  confident  spirit  of  Christ  as  He 
sets  about  His  work.  There  are  no  moods  or 
despondencies  in  it.  We  speak  of  the  Transfig- 
uration and  the  agony  of  Gethsemane  as  moods. 
These  are  not  moods.  They  are  triumphs,  con- 
flicts, epochs  of  struggle  and  victory,  but  not 
moods  either  of  exaltation  or  despondency.  Con- 
sider the  life,  beset  on  every  side,  pressed  down, 
not  one  single  soul  to  understand  or  sympathise 
with  it,  crushed  within  limitations  against 
which  it  wrestled  beyond  the  possibility  of  any 
one  of  us  to  understand,  and  yet  walking  with 
quiet,  calm  evenness  of  will  and  heart  through  it 
all,  with  never  one  moment's  hesitation  as  to  the 
certainty  of  final  and  complete  victory,  speaking 
quietly  of  His  Gospel  as  to  be  preached  every- 
where, of  all  nations  to  be  made  His  disciples,  of 
the  tale  of  a  woman's  love  to  be  told  wherever 
throughout  the  whole  world  the  knowledge  of 
Him  and  of  His  salvation  should  go.  Think  of 
the  confidence,  the  calm  steadfast  rest  of  Jesus 
Christ,   who   never   doubted   either   His   project 


UNIQUENESS    OF    OUR    LORD      235 

or  Himself.  We  know  men  who  never  doubt 
themselves,  but  sometimes  doubt  their  projects; 
and  other  men  who  never  doubt  their  projects, 
but  often  doubt  themselves.  But  here  was  One 
Who  doubted  neither  His  mission  nor  Himself. 
We  very  greatly  need  to  be  like  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  in  this.  When  we  have  a  sense  of 
having  failed  utterly,  when  we  look  back  over 
our  life  and  it  seems  only  havoc  and  shipwreck, 
He  can  help  us  also  to  rest  with  perfect  con- 
fidence in  Him  Whose  will  we  have  come 
to  do. 

Think,  thirdly,  of  the  unselfishness  of  Jesus. 
I  am  not  speaking  of  the  unselfishness  of  the 
incarnation,  though  that  grows  ever  more  mar- 
vellous and  incomprehensible.  I  do  not  see  how 
any  reverent  man  or  woman  can  grow  old  in 
human  sorrow  and  experience  without  standing 
each  day  with  fresh  wonder  before  the  miracle 
and  the  marvel  of  the  incarnation.  We  speak 
about  the  agony  of  Christ's  death.  It  was  de- 
liverance to  Him.  The  agony  of  Christ's  Hfe 
here  on  earth  was  not  in  the  end  of  it,  but  in  the 
continued  endurance  of  it  while  He  lived,  hedged 
in  with  the  standards  of  our  moral  life  with  all 
the  fresh  high  judgments  of  heaven  in  Him. 
In  Browning's  Karshish  is  the  story  of  Lazarus 
come  back  from  the  grave  to  live  still  among 
people  who  are  bound  to  this  present  world 
while  Lazarus,  perforce,  must  move  about 
among    them    carrying    always    in    his    heart 


236     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

heaven's  standards  and  visions.  Our  Lord 
Jesus  had  to  do  that  all  the  time  He  was  here, 
and  the  unselfishness  of  it  passes  all  understand- 
ing. When  with  that  infinite  stoop  of  conde- 
scension our  Lord  emptied  Himself,  buried  Him- 
self in  a  grave  that  was  many  times  more  real 
a  grave  to  Him  than  Joseph's  clean  and  new- 
made  tomb,  even  the  grave  of  our  human  flesh, 
and  went  about  amongst  us  imprisoned  in  this 
charnel  house  of  our  humanity,  there  v/as  the 
real  object  lesson  of  unselfishness. 

But  I  am  not  thinking  of  that,  but  of  the  un- 
selfishness of  Jesus's  human  life,  of  His  careless- 
ness of  the  little  things,  the  food  and  the  shelter 
and  the  raiment;  of  His  contempt  for  all  the 
things  that  men  counted  great,  and  valuable,  and 
worthy,  of  the  absence  of  all  wilfulness  and 
caprice,  the  most  contemptible  and  yet  the  most 
common  marks  of  selfishness,  from  His  life ;  the 
absence  of  all  the  self-pride  which  showed  itself 
in  His  constant  loving  forgiveness  of  men,  and 
that  great  unselfishness  which  displayed  itself 
in  His  contempt  of  death.  It  is  the  one  thing 
in  one  of  our  best  known  lives  of  Jesus  which 
mars  its  beauty,  that  it  accuses  our  Lord  of  cow- 
ardice in  Gethsemane,  says  that  He  was  young, 
that  the  thought  of  death  was  abhorrent  to 
Him,  that  the  tides  of  youthful  life  were  run- 
ning in  His  veins  and  He  could  not  look  forward 
with  equanimity  to  the  dark  shadows  of  the 
grave.      Ten    thousands    of   His    friends    have 


UNIQUENESS    OF    OUR    LORD      237 

walked  up  to  the  jaws  of  death  without  fear. 
There  w^ere  two  Httle  children  in  one  of  the 
villages,  near  Pao-ting-fu  during  the  Boxer 
massacres  who  looked  right  up  into  the  eyes  of 
the  Boxers  when  they  came  into  their  village 
and  threatened  their  lives,  asking  them  if  they 
were  believers  in  the  Christian's  God,  and  they 
replied,  "  Yes,  we  are,"  refusing  to  deny  that 
they  were  the  heavenly  Father's  little  chil- 
dren under  the  edge  of  the  overhanging  sword. 
Was  Jesus  Christ  less  brave  than  these  little 
Chinese  children  who  died  for  His  name?  He 
was  not  afraid  of  death  in  Gethsemane;  it  was 
not  the  death  upon  the  cross  from  which  He 
shrank ;  it  vx^as  death  before  the  cross.  He  feared 
that  He  might  not  live  to  die  for  the  world  upon 
the  cross,  that  the  agony  which  He  was  facing 
in  the  garden  might  so  far  overtax  His 
vital  energies  that  He  would  never  live  to  come 
to  the  cross ;  and  therefore,  as  the  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  says,  with  strong  cry- 
ing and  tears  He  called  unto  Him  that  was  able 
to  deliver  Him  from  death,  and  was  heard  in 
that  He  feared.  Selfishness  of  every  sort  was 
as  distant  from  the  nature  of  Jesus  as  the  noon- 
day is  from  the  midnight.  Oh,  friends,  so 
bent  upon  our  ways,  so  set  in  all  our  little 
caprices  of  taste  and  of  judgment  and  of 
opinion,  how  much  we  need  the  great,  divine 
unselfishness  of  Him  Who  emptied  Himself  and 
became  of  no  reputation,  and  took  on  Him  the 


238     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

form  of  a  servant,,   and  became  obedient  unto 
death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross! 

Think  once  again  of  the  way  Jesus  Christ 
bound  up  in  Himself  a.ll  great  qualities  in  unison 
and  balance.  It  is  true  that  many  of  the  quali- 
ties that  Jesus  displays  have  been  found  in 
others.  There  are  men  who  possess  great  quali- 
ties, but  there  has  never  been  a  man  who  pos- 
sessed all  great  qualities  balanced  by  their  proper 
counterparts.  Jesus  alone  took  everything  that 
is  great  and  worthy  and  so  balanced  it  with  its 
contrary  desirable  quality  as  to  keep  His  life 
free  of  distortion.  Buddha  exalted  poverty 
and  preached  the  contemptibleness  of  the  things 
that  men  prize,  and  what  is  the  consequence? 
There  is  a  palsy  as  of  death  resting  on  all  the 
lands  where  Buddha's  influence  abides,  while 
wherever  Jesus's  influence  has  gone  men  have 
set  to  work  with  their  hands,  with  their  minds, 
with  their  hearts,  and  the  people  whom  He  has 
shaped  are  doing  the  whole  work  of  the  world. 
Balance  off  in  Jesus  each  quality  you  think  ad- 
mirable with  the  quality  needed  to  safeguard  it, 
and  you  will  begin  to  get  some  conception  of  the 
marvellous  beauty  and  perfectness  of  that  unique 
life.  Innocent  He  was,  and  yet  He  had  power ; 
can  you  make  that  combination  in  your  life? 
Pure  He  was,  and  yet;  He  was  not  hard  or  unin- 
telligent toward  evil;;  can  you  make  that  com- 
bination? We  love  innocence  and  we  lose  influ- 
ence.    We   love   purity,   and   we  become   hard 


UNIQUENESS    OF    OUR    LORD      239 

and  uncharitable.  We  fling  ourselves  against 
sin,  and  it  is  soon  stern  hatred  not  of  sin  alone 
but  of  the  sinner  also.  Alone  of  all  those  who 
have  ever  taught  among  men  Jesus  Christ  stands 
out  as  the  One  in  Whom  no  defect  but  instead 
the  perfect  balance  of  just  character  was  found. 
In  this  we  all  need  to  be  like  Him !  We  love 
truth,  and  grow  soft.  We  hate  lies,  and  grow 
hard.  We  set  ourselves  against  sin,  and  before 
we  know  it  our  hearts  have  lost  the  tenderness  of 
Christ  No  one  has  ever  walked  with  a  perfect 
balance  of  Hfe  such  as  marked  Jesus;  and  if 
there  be  one  of  us  who  says  that  Jesus  was  only 
human  we  stand  in  a  position  of  strange  respon- 
sibility and  obligation;  for  if  nineteen  hundred 
years  ago  that  peasant  of  Galilee  was  the  kind  of 
man  He  was,  we  of  to-day,  with  all  the  advan- 
tage of  what  has  taken  place  in  this  world  by 
His  influence,  are  bound  to  be  better  men  than 
He. 

Think,  lastly,  of  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus.  He 
said,  "  Father,  forgive  them,"  but  He  never  said, 
"  Father,  forgive  Me."  Alone  of  all  who  have 
lived,  Jesus  Christ  was  able  to  live  His  life  with- 
out ever  asking  forgiveness.  He  challenged 
men  to  find  a  flaw  in  Him.  "  Which  of  you," 
He  said,  "  convinceth  Me  of  sin  ?  "  And  while 
that  was  only  an  appeal,  of  course,  to  human 
standards  of  measurement.  He  went  far  beyond 
it :  "I  am  unable  to  find  any  flaws  in  Myself.  I 
do  alway  those  things  that  please  Him."     Now 


240     THE    MASTER    OF    THE    HEART 

the  greatest  love  in  this  world  springs  always 
from  the  deep  sense  of  forgiven  sin.  That  is 
what  Jesus  said  in  Simon's  house.  "  Simon, 
who  thinkest  thou  would  love  most,  the  one  who 
has  been  forgiven  little  or  much  ?  "  "  Why," 
said  Simon,  "  the  one  who  has  been  forgiven 
most  would  love  most."  And  yet  here  was  one 
who  was  never  forgiven  at  all,  who  loved  most. 
You  cannot  keep  up  human  piety  without  re- 
pentance. There  never  was  a  holy  character  that 
was  not  built  on  the  consciousness  of  forgiveness. 
You  can  search  human  history  through  and  the 
world  from  end  to  end,  and  not  find  in  it  one  su- 
premely good  character  that  is  not  built  on  re- 
pentance and  the  sense  of  forgiven  sin;  and  yet 
those  things  are  totally  absent  from  the  life  of 
Jesus.  He  stands  out  the  one  unique  and  stainless 
life.  And  I  think  that  when  we  have  got  back  of 
all  that  people  say  about  Him,  we  will  discover 
that  that  is  the  root  of  His  enduring  influence 
still.  It  is  not  the  teaching  of  Jesus ;  it  is  not  the 
miracles  of  Jesus ;  it  is  not  the  general  beauty  of 
Jesus's  character.  Men  may  dwell  on  these 
things  wisely;  they  do  not  know  the  human 
heart  if  they  think  that  these  explain  the 
hold  of  Christ  on  human  life.  That  hold  rests 
on  Christ's  sinlessness,  and  the  deepest  con- 
sciousness of  man  knows  that  It  rests  there.  Back 
of  all  that  is  superficial  in  our  thought  there  lie 
principles  of  action  and  of  conviction  that  root 
themselves  in  this  truth,  that  Jesus  was  of  men 


UNIQUENESS   OF    OUR    LORD      241 

the  only  one  who  never  needed  to  say,  "  Father, 
forgive  me,  for  I  have  sinned."  Far  and  wide 
through  this  world  the  hearts  of  men  and  women 
have  turned  to  Him  in  the  past,  and  turn  to  Him 
to-day  still,  and  will  turn  to  Him,  until  at  last 
the  ages  are  done,  because  deeply  in  their  souls 
the  Spirit  of  God  is  telling  them  that  there  is 
One  who  having  been  tempted  in  all  points  like 
as  they  are,  yet  without  sin,  is  able  Himself  also 
to  succour  them  that  are  tempted.  The  glory  of 
our  Master's  life,  the  power  of  His  life,  the 
beauty  of  His  Hfe,  the  secret  influence  of  His 
life,  are  found  in  this  which  sets  Him  off  from 
us  alone.  He  was  not  of  us ;  He  became  of  us 
that  we  who  are  not  of  Him  might  become  of 
Him.  He  was  not  like  us,  and  He  became  like 
us  that  we  who  were  not  like  Him  might  become 
like  Him.  *'  I  gave,  I  gave  My  life  for  thee," 
is  His  word,  and  it  was  a  perfect  life  that  He 
gave.  Let  us  answer  Him  back  from  our  lives 
of  flaw  and  imperfection :  "  Thou  alone  art 
worthy !     Here  is  my  life  for  Thine !  " 


END 


Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  01127  8597 


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